


The Ice Plague: Book 3 - The Ice Plague

by not_poignant



Series: The Ice Plague [4]
Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Augus 'very tired vampire wine aunt' Each Uisge, Augus Each Uisge/Gwyn ap Nudd - Freeform, Augus and Mosk have chemistry sorry, BDSM, Bondage, Book 3 of 3, Compulsions, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Dominance/submission, Dubious Consent, Emesis, Eran 'Is it too late to join a hippie commune' Iliakambar, Fairy Tale Elements, Grief, Gwyn 'kind of zen about the end of the world' ap Nudd, Hopeful Ending, Horror Elements, Hurt/Comfort, Limit Pushing, M/M, Major Communication Issues, Mind Control, Minor Character Death, Mosk 'I'm 400 Power Moves in a Trench Coat' Manytrees, Mythology - Freeform, Nightmares, PTSD, Politics, Power Play, Questionable Consent, Seelie Court, Shibari, Subspace, Suicidal Ideation, Trauma Recovery, Unseelie Court, chronic disability, dubcon, epic fantasy, temporary major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 79,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: Eran Iliakambar and Mosk Manytrees are on the final stretch of their journey to vanquish the plague of ice and defeat the dreaded Mage Olphix once and for all. Travelling with a mixed Seelie and Unseelie group of fae – including the Unseelie King – mourning their losses and dealing with their traumas, the two are challenged repeatedly, struggling to keep their love for each other alive during a time that threatens not only their relationship, but their lives, and the lives of all fae. (Book 3 of 3)
Relationships: Eran Iliakambar/Mosk Manytrees
Series: The Ice Plague [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/819441
Comments: 648
Kudos: 259





	1. The Ice and the Dryad

**Author's Note:**

> HHHHokay we're here! First things first, if you're a newcomer don't start with this fic, it won't make any sense! Click that awesome series link above this, and go exploring the earlier stuff. :D 
> 
> Officially, more tags will be added per chapter, either into the author's notes section, or into the official listing. I'm hoping to put up 2-3 chapters a month, and I have 10 chapters written already, so I just have to keep up with my writing buffer. I hope y'all are prepared, this is officially the last canon Fae Tales story for a while, and we've got some BIG fucking things planned. Mostly I just really hope you enjoy the ride.
> 
> [Of COURSE there's a playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4bZnaAlHvtXRfYBVyFqSWX?si=zuUFOcb8R3au_5Mebeulew) I'm also on [Tumblr](https://not-poignant.tumblr.com/) if you want to ask me things or scream at me, or whatever you feel the need to do after chapters! There is also a [Fae Tales Discord](https://discord.gg/T6gXXJW) (which has been running for three years oh god). Please consider leaving Kudos and maybe subscribing if you want email notifications and even commenting if you are inclined! :D

_Mosk_

*

Mosk was fascinated by the ice.

He sat on a moss covered boulder, knees drawn up, ankles pressing into his thighs, and watched its dormant stillness. He held a canister of elm sap, sipping quietly, and sometimes he looked down at Eran where he was curled up on the floor under one of the fire-coloured blankets that Mosk had stolen from the Mantissa. Mosk took three, and he would have taken more but he’d been frantic to get back to a nearly catatonic Eran.

Eran was doing better now, but he wasn’t _better_. He was talking at least, but Mosk saw a dullness in his amber eyes, like they were shadowed over. When Mosk did Eran’s eyeliner in the morning, painting the black lines carefully, Eran stared ahead like he couldn’t see a thing.

Albion, King of the Atlantic Ocean, said it was because of prolonged exposure to the sea. Mosk was sure that was part of it. But he also knew it was Stertes. He knew Eran was tired and had come to see how futile their journey was. Mosk would have felt bitterly satisfied by it a couple of months ago. He hated it now. Seeing Eran’s blank gaze, his unseeing eyes that had stopped caring as much, it made him angry, it made him want to fix it and he couldn’t fix a thing.

He listened to the birdsong. It was early and Eran wasn’t the only one still asleep: Julvia, Augus and Ash were on the other side of the campfire they used – that Mosk hated – their chests rising and falling steadily. Gwyn had handed Mosk the sap earlier, before disappearing into the woods so silently that the birds hadn’t even paused in their songs. Mosk kept an eye on the ice and sometimes he looked over to the giant ice-covered edifice that had once been the Seelie Court.

He’d only been to the Seelie Court once before, when Eran dragged him there by an iron-made manacle, and Mosk had met Olphix pretending to be Davix. Mosk had questioned his past, his life, cowering, small and terrified. Before, the Seelie Court had been a place to fear. Now the Seelie Court was awe-inspiring because it was gone.

He’d _made_ that ice.

He didn’t know how he’d made it, and he knew that Davix’s magic was the reason it was so powerful, but he knew that his heartsong was in it. He’d known for a long time. He touched the ice when he dreamwalked, visiting Davix’s ghost. He wanted to touch it now, but everyone else behaved like touching it was asking for death, asking to activate it again. Mosk remembered Eran’s terror of the ice and remembered Eran’s worst memory and he didn’t touch it.

Eran had seen that ice devour and destroy his family with quick, lethal force, and even though the plague of ice around them now was still, Mosk knew it was still alive. He had a horrible vision of it reawakening and destroying them all if he brushed his fingers against it, and though his heartsong craved it, the Raven Prince’s words echoed through his mind.

_Be careful what you risk._

He looked down at Eran again, lips pursing. When Augus was well enough to travel again they’d begin another journey and Mosk worried for Eran. He knew what it was like to be so exhausted that the idea of waking up in the morning was its own existential horror. He wished he could take that feeling from Eran and fold it back into himself. Sometimes it felt like he’d given all his heaviness to Eran, and he wished he knew how to take it back.

*

Eran’s gaze was blank as Mosk did his eyeliner an hour later. He bit the inside of his lower lip as he wished Eran would just look at him, see him.

‘Maybe it’s not good,’ Mosk said, critiquing the lines he’d drawn.

‘I’m sure it is,’ Eran said automatically.

They’d had three days together, they slept beneath the same blankets, but Eran barely touched him. It ate away at Mosk like a fungus turning all the leaves in his canopy to rot. He tried to be strong, he knew he wasn’t supposed to take it personally, but what if Eran would be better if he had a different person in his life looking after him? What if he’d be happier by now? What if some of his despair was that he was saddled with Mosk?

As though his worries woke something in Eran, shadowed amber eyes met his. ‘I’m sorry, Mosk. I’m just so tired.’

‘I know,’ Mosk said quickly. ‘You don’t have to be sorry.’

Eran’s eyes moved slowly to the ice and he sighed. ‘It never moves, does it?’

‘No. I’d tell you if it did. I promise.’

Eran’s brow furrowed and he turned back to Mosk. ‘You don’t have to promise things like that, Mosk.’

‘Maybe you should make a fire today. The campfire at night isn’t enough, is it?’

Mosk hated hearing his own agitated, rushed voice. He hated the way he wheedled at Eran to fix everything, to get better, to be who he used to be. He hated that he couldn’t just let Eran _be._

‘I’ll stop,’ Mosk said in a rush. ‘I’m stopping. You let me stay upset for ages.’

‘You’re not upset anymore?’

‘Not like you,’ Mosk said. ‘I mean, I still think this is pointless.’

‘Living and trying,’ Eran said drily, a small dark smirk settled into the corners of his mouth and Mosk wished he could touch his fingers to it. Eran smiling, even when it was cynical, was special. He wanted more. ‘Can’t imagine why you’d think that way.’

_I’m sorry you’re so sad. I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough to save you. I’m sorry I didn’t kill Stertes sooner. I’m sorry none of us realised what being out on the ocean was doing to you. I’m sorry we didn’t fix it._

Eran was the good one. The only Seelie fae in their company. Properly good, honourable, dignified, and Mosk wondered if they’d all poisoned him.

He twitched as Eran’s fingers went to his cheek and rested there. Mosk couldn’t help but look sidelong at the rest of their group. But Augus and Ash were still sleeping even though it was noon, and Julvia and Gwyn were talking together in the distance, their heads close and the tone of their conversation serious. Mosk knew now that it would take no effort to hear them, a tiny sliver of his magic and he’d hear it all.

He hated how itchy it felt, that gentle touch at his cheek. He withstood it because it was Eran reaching out to him, Eran who was making an effort, but he wanted to scream.

‘Don’t give me up on me,’ Eran said, his eyes closing, and Mosk realised a black line on his eyelid was crooked. Unexpectedly, Mosk felt a lump in his throat and shook his head, dislodging Eran’s fingers.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’

_Don’t give up on me either._

But Eran didn’t believe Mosk could help him, because Mosk _couldn’t._ He’d even helped Eran with that huge bonfire, and ultimately it still didn’t stop Eran lapsing back into this state of mind. Mosk couldn’t change reality, he couldn’t kill Olphix, he couldn’t bring back Eran’s family. He had all this magic, and in the moment, all he could think to do with it was eavesdrop on the Unseelie King.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ Eran said, pushing up and exhaling so heavily that Mosk wondered if it hurt for him to breathe. He remembered what that was like.

‘Don’t go far.’

‘I won’t, my little flame.’

Eran walked away. Mosk stayed kneeling, feeling the scar of Eran’s touch on his cheek, reminded of the Mages who had tortured him, feeling the endearment bursting painfully inside like a seed pod giving up all of its seeds at once. Eran cut him with both of these things and left Mosk there on the ground, trying to understand it.

*

Julvia was crying again. She cried multiple times a day, though she didn’t seem to need anyone to comfort her, she appreciated it all the same. Mosk watched with disgust and tried not to stare at her with open resentment. Her lover wasn’t dead, just absent. Ondine wasn’t even _dead_. She was just back on her stupid ship that had hurt Eran so much.

Ash went over to Julvia by the crackling of the fire, rubbing his hand comfortingly at the small of Julvia’s back, talking to her in a low voice. Mosk watched from some distance away, thinking it was a mockery that Julvia could indulge something so petty and small, when Mosk hadn’t cried over his family much at all and Eran had so much grieving to do and wasn’t crying all the time. He didn’t need people to go over him and pet him on the shoulder or back multiple times a day.

Normally he’d complain to Eran about it, but he knew Eran wouldn’t like it. Eran would probably say something stupid about emotions or about Julvia and Mosk would still be annoyed. Would the Raven Prince understand?

Maybe he should be nicer, but it wasn’t like Julvia had ever gone out of her way to do a single thing for him on the Mantissa. If she had no time for him, then he had no time for her. But it seemed darkly hilarious that Augus was in agony from starvation and never complained, and Ash was in the same agony and he rarely complained, and Gwyn didn’t know how to save the world and his lover was wasting away and he didn’t complain, and even Eran didn’t complain about Stertes and Mosk complained but at least he never cried. Not like that.

It set his teeth on edge and he didn’t know why.

She shouldn’t be _allowed._ It was like she was rubbing it in all their faces.

‘Be stronger,’ he muttered under his breath.

Gwyn – hair golden-orange in the light of the fire – turned to look at him like he’d heard those quiet words from that distance. Mosk glared, then turned and walked away. He didn’t go far, because it was dark and Gwyn had given Mosk a particularly stern look when he’d told all of them to stay close three days ago.

He made his way back to the boulder and stared down at the blankets with their fire patterns, lonely with no one to cover, because Eran was by the fire too. Eran wasn’t staring at much, but he was there and he seemed to do better around people than on his own.

Mosk missed the ocean, he wanted to hear the waves, and he wanted to hear the trees around him now like he had for two hundred years. Every now and then when no one was looking, he gripped the rope around his wrist because Eran couldn’t do it for him. It didn’t help. It was squeezing more loneliness into his body. The rope was Eran’s, Mosk knew anything he did to mimic that ownership was an empty echo. But Eran didn’t want him, so Mosk continued to grasp the rope and hope that no one saw it. He wasn’t like Julvia.

He stared at the ice that glittered in the starlight and wanted to touch it. He wanted to press his palm to it like he did when he dreamwalked.

 _That’s my heartsong,_ he thought, _and Davix might as well be my ghost, which means that’s my magic. It’s all mine and I should be able to do whatever I want with it._

He knew he was connected to it. He was linked to it in the way he used to be linked to the trees. But he couldn’t rid himself of the image of the ice responding to him like a wild, hungry beast, rising and falling down on all of them.

Mosk touched the pendant, the pale green crystal, felt the magic thrumming behind its hidden door. Three days and he hadn’t come any closer to figuring out what the Raven Prince intended with the gift. Three days and they were just staying here in the shadow of a collapsed Kingdom while Gwyn pretended like he knew what they were supposed to be doing.

It wasn’t hard for Mosk to imagine he was nothing, to imagine he didn’t matter. He was a dead leaf among billions on the forest floor, he was eaten up by tiny creatures that his brother Leaf didn’t know the names of because he only cared about the names of trees. Mosk was so insubstantial he was dirt. Empty, the hollow of a giant tree and the wind roaring inside, caught in its charcoal belly before rolling out again.

Now, newly invisible, he stared at the ice and kept his fingers against the pendant at his neck. It had throbbed, once, in response to Mosk letting out some of his magic to become invisible. But it didn’t share its secrets. He didn’t know what it was for, what it was supposed to do. Was it charmed to protect him? Warn him? Teach him? He felt like the Raven Prince would gift him something that could teach him.

_Be careful what you risk._

He let himself become visible again and closed up his magic and rested his head on his knee.

‘Please get better,’ Mosk whispered. ‘Please.’

He was a needy, horrible thing. Eran didn’t come to bed for another few hours and Mosk sank down onto the ground by his side and soaked up his body heat and reached for the rope around his wrist and pretended it was Eran’s perfect brown fingers, pretended it was enough.

‘Was the campfire nice?’ Mosk said, his words hesitant.

‘I liked it,’ Eran said. Mosk stared at the back of his head – all shadows in the darkness –and could tell even thirty minutes later that Eran wasn’t sleeping.

Now Eran needed hours before he fell asleep, and Mosk thought of all the ways he could help. Sentences rose and fell in his mind. Paragraphs got stuck in his throat. But it all sounded wrong. It all sounded needy. He knew Eran needed someone who really cared about him, not someone who wanted him to get better so that he’d go back to grasping Mosk’s wrist again and keep him in place. It wasn’t fair. Eran needed someone who didn’t expect him to be an anchor.

Sometime towards dawn, Mosk finally let himself sleep on the back of Eran’s slowing, deepening breaths.

*

On the fourth day, Gwyn called a meeting. Mosk thought that was stupid, because there were only six of them and Gwyn could start talking about whatever he wanted when they were all together anyway. But he announced a meeting, asked them all to sit down, and still had a bite mark on his arm where Augus had dined on his blood. That was how they all knew the necklace the Raven Prince had given Augus still wasn’t working. Gwyn wasn’t certain it would work at all, but Gwyn hadn’t been inside the Raven Prince’s mind and didn’t know how desperate that love was.

Mosk imagined the Raven Prince working on that charm, night after night, to give the love of his life a parting gift that mattered. If anyone in the world could make that charm work, it was the Raven Prince.

‘I’ve been scouting around,’ Gwyn said. ‘It’s not safe to return to the Unseelie Court. I was hoping we might touch base in Winterwest, but everything I’ve heard has indicated Unseelie-populated cities aren’t safe, largely due to the unsatisfied bloodlust of the Unseelie Court fae that used to eat humans.’

‘Groovy,’ Ash said. He rubbed at the circles under his eyes and looked over at Augus, who was at least sitting upright and didn’t seem to need to lean against anyone today.

‘If we can get that necklace to work, then we can hopefully avoid Mauerland and the Ratcatcher. I’m thinking that…’ Gwyn had torn up a patch of grass and now drew in the damp soil left behind. ‘…We travel up towards Summervale and through to Esgrettio. It’s the Seelie Courtlands, and we need information about what Olphix is doing and what he has planned. I’d also like to see what allies we have, if there’s to be a battle.’

‘Esgrettio is a mixed-alignment city,’ Augus said, his voice weak, but still polite. ‘It’s near Paelfort.’

‘I’d like to avoid Paelfort,’ Gwyn admitted. ‘The gryphons aren’t likely to be welcoming, they were Albion’s allies.’

‘More welcoming than anyone in Esgrettio is likely to be to _me_ ,’ Augus said softly. ‘It’s a city of rivers and lakes. We _still_ receive assassins from Esgrettio. It doesn’t matter that I’ve healed the Esgrettio waterscapes that I destroyed, Gwyn, it matters that around this time last year, a lovely young woman from Esgrettio tried to have me killed.’

Gwyn winced. ‘If we are well enough to travel there, perhaps you will be well enough to become invisible.’

‘I could probably make him invisible,’ Mosk said. ‘I mean I haven’t tried it yet, but I think I could do it.’

‘If we arc around Paelfort,’ Gwyn said, after nodding an acknowledgement at Mosk, ‘and head northeast, we’ll reach the School of the Staff. There, we can consult with Taronis if he’s still living there. Esgrettio has connections with the Cult of Taronis that might benefit us.’

‘All this is predicated on whether I’ll be well enough to travel. If I’m not, you’ll have to find a Mage that will send me back to the Unseelie Court,’ Augus said.

‘We’ve discussed this already. If you’re not well enough to travel, we’ll go to the Ratcatcher.’

Augus pressed his lips together, he looked like he wanted to argue, but he said nothing.

‘Even I know about the Pied Piper, dude,’ Ash said. ‘He doesn’t _share._ Especially not with Unseelie fae.’

‘I am the King of the Unseelie fae, and – depending on what you want to believe – the King of the Seelie fae as well. That should mean something.’

Mosk looked at Eran to see if he was taking all of this in, but he was staring off and didn’t seem to care at all. Mosk bit his lip and wished he understood the politics of the Seelie Courtlands and knew what to say. But until this strange journey had started, he’d never been anywhere but the Aur Forest and the Unseelie Court. He didn’t even know the villages properly around the Aur forest itself and many were burned down or covered in ice anyway.

‘King of the Seelie fae,’ Augus said, then sighed. ‘It’s just like him, isn’t it? He humiliated you, demoted you, cast you out, took your armour, destroyed the Court through his negligence and his willingness to trust the wrong people, and then when he ruined it beyond the shadow of a doubt, he gave it back to you. There are children that show better care of their toys.’

Mosk never saw Augus’ reaction to Gwyn’s dual-Kingship, but he liked to imagine that it was such a shock that it snapped Augus back into consciousness.

‘He was genuinely remorseful,’ Gwyn said chidingly.

‘Yes,’ Augus said, ‘children are very remorseful once they’ve completely broken their toys and realised that it’s never going to be the same as it was and you can’t get them a new one. That’s what children do. Stop defending him. That creature tried to drown you by drawing saltwater into your lungs and would have destroyed the Unseelie Court were it not for that Coalition of the Classless. I care not that he spent the last however long, feeling sorry for himself in the pit of the sea, realising he made a mistake only _then.’_

Gwyn had a look on his face that suggested he disagreed. Mosk understood. Albion was just so sad at the end. Sad and grim and like a fae that knew their entire life in all its achievements amounted to nothing because of mistakes they made at the end. From all reports, Albion was one of the best rulers the sea had ever seen. No one on the land would ever know him for that.

They’d know him as the one who let the Seelie Court fall after promising he would be a better ruler than any land fae.

It was hard to hate Albion when he already hated himself. But Augus hadn’t been conscious during any of that.

Augus looked at Gwyn for a long time, like he expected something to happen, or like he was seeing something that Mosk couldn’t see. Eventually he lifted his hand in an elegant shrug and yawned. He’d lost weight, his cheekbones sharp, eyes bright as though with fever, except that Inner Court fae couldn’t get fevers. They didn’t get sick. It was just the starvation shining through his body.

‘Are you working on training your magic?’ Gwyn said, turning to Mosk.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess.’

Gwyn had talked to him about it a couple of times and Mosk was never sure what to say. He could just _do_ things, he had no idea what training was supposed to look like. Gwyn trained with a sword he’d been gifted by Ondine, the metal was pale blue and the hilt was white, and it was very different to Gwyn’s black, grim sword that he’d had before that matched his black, grim armour. But the Raven Prince had destroyed the original sword as a lesson, turning it to dust before Mosk’s very eyes.

The new sword was pretty and shiny, Mosk thought there might be shells engraved into the hilt but they were so small he never got a chance to see them.

Mosk didn’t have exercises that looked like Gwyn’s training. He practiced opening and closing up his magic. He tried to prod the necklace the Raven Prince had given him. But he didn’t need to train stabbing people with branches. It was _easy._ And that seemed to be the sort of thing Gwyn wanted from him.

‘Have you dreamwalked to see Davix since we’ve come back to land?’

Mosk tried to ignore the gazes of Augus, Ash and Julvia. Eran was staring off like nothing mattered to him.

 _Stop it,_ he thought. _That’s supposed to be me. That’s my job._

‘No. The last time I saw him, I asked if he’d teach me about magic – like the Raven Prince suggested – but he said he’d only do it if I reunited him with Olphix.’

‘Lovely,’ Augus said.

Mosk didn’t like Augus. He didn’t think he’d ever like Augus. He was intimidating, he had those compulsions, he was mean and he teased, and he’d taught Eran how to _hurt_ people. And not just in a way that Mosk craved. He’d never forget the fact that Eran talked to Augus about sadism, then came and punished him, even if it wasn’t _really_ a punishment, it was still _something._ It still had something to do with Augus.

‘I told him no,’ Mosk said sharply, glaring at Augus, before turning back to look at Gwyn. ‘But he did say explicitly that I could reunite them in death, and he’d agree to teach me even then. I told him no. But I think if I agree to let them die together, he’ll teach me. He’s told me what he wants.’

‘I mean he sounds super trustworthy,’ Ash said. ‘Like someone who would never lie to you.’

‘I’m not fucking stupid,’ Mosk snapped. ‘So you don’t need to make your little snarky comments like I have no idea what’s going on, thanks. _You’re_ not the ones who’ve been dealing with him since we boarded the Mantissa, but I have. You want to try and do what I do? You’re welcome to it, except you both can’t do magic.’

‘Mosk,’ Gwyn said. It was a reprimand. He wasn’t harsh or rude about it, but Mosk could hear that thread of sternness, disappointment.

 _‘What?’_ he said.

Mosk felt Eran’s eyes on him now. He looked, expecting judgement, but instead there was only a kind of curiosity. Mosk wanted to grab him and drag him away and ask him if he was all right and if he was ready to talk and when the land would help him and when he’d get back to _normal._ And it wasn’t going to happen, because there was no such thing as normal in their lives.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ash said. Mosk thought he seemed sincere, but it was hard to tell. 

Mosk wrung his hands together, unsure what to say. He was still angry. People didn’t normally apologise to him about anything, certainly not for being snarky at him or teasing him. His brothers used to be mean all the time, especially Mallem, and his parents almost never said anything. Now he felt awkward and agitated, he couldn’t breathe properly. Was he supposed to say it was fine when it wasn’t fine? Was it supposed to be fine?

He reached for something to distract himself with and turned to Gwyn.

‘Did you know you’re related to Davix and Olphix?’

Everyone stilled, Mosk pressed his thumb into the underside of the rope where no one could see.

‘It’s why your magic’s so strong,’ Mosk continued, looking only at Gwyn. ‘Well, why it was supposed to be so strong, until like, you fucked it up by never using it and suppressing it all the time. The Raven Prince said that if you’d actually used your magic properly, you’d be as strong as him, or even as strong as Davix and Olphix, and that it can never happen now because of whatever reasons you chose to just not use it, I guess. Like you thought it was just too hard or something?’

He knew exactly why Gwyn hadn’t trained his magic, because he’d eavesdropped on that conversation between the King and the Raven Prince.

Gwyn’s gaze was so disconcerting. It was a physical force, like being pinned against a cold, brick wall. Mosk squared his shoulders and took a deep breath to steady himself, but he wanted to shrink down into nothing in response.

‘The Raven Prince knew I was related to them?’ Gwyn said slowly.

‘What? No,’ Mosk said. ‘No, he just said your magic could’ve been really strong. Davix was the one who explained that you’re related to them through the An Fnwy curse. He basically said Olphix fucked the curse into the bloodline and that it concentrated over time and ended with you. It’s why you’re Unseelie. But I think the magic probably concentrated, or maybe skipped like a billion generations. It’s why you kind of look like them.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Augus said slowly and Mosk refused to look at him. He stared at Gwyn who wasn’t blinking at all. Just that blue gaze pushing down on him like it could drill him into the ground. Mosk had to blink, and then he had to swallow because his throat was dry. As far as distracting subjects went, this wasn’t much better than talking about Davix as a potential magical tutor.

‘I mean, think about it,’ Mosk persisted. ‘If Gwyn’s hair was black… And he has the exact same eye colour as Davix. Even their curly hair is the same texture, kind of. And like…some of the shapes of their face. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Ash breathed.

‘Davix wasn’t lying to you?’ Gwyn said finally.

‘He could always be lying to me,’ Mosk said blandly. ‘I don’t really see why he would about this. He didn’t seem to think it mattered. He just said it made it easier to tell where you were, because of the bloodline connection. Like, you don’t use your magic, so you’re not a threat to them. Olphix doesn’t care about anyone except for Davix, it doesn’t matter if you’re family, he still doesn’t give a shit. So it doesn’t change anything. Even _you_ knowing doesn’t change anything. Right?’

Gwyn kept up that horrible stare, and Mosk had to look away, only then realising how shallow his breathing was. He was afraid. That stare made him afraid. Was that what animals saw when Gwyn was hunting them? Was it Gwyn’s dra’ocht? He still felt the weight of it, like two hands pushing him down, like fingers digging into his throat until he bled.

‘I have heard that using sex to introduce a curse into a bloodline is one of the most effective ways of introducing one,’ Julvia said, speaking up politely. ‘That and murder. And I can see what he’s saying, there is a resemblance. Crielle Ferch Fnwy was known for those blue eyes as well, wasn’t she?’

‘They were a family trait,’ Augus said softly. ‘That particular blue.’

Mosk was relieved they were taking him seriously. He felt exhausted. His wrist ached because he’d switched from pressing into the loops of rope, to digging his thumb directly into his skin.

‘I don’t know much more about it,’ Mosk said. ‘Davix didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. But it does mean Olphix can find you the easiest out of all of us. I thought he had a tracking spell on me, but if he did he would have killed me by now. He’s only been able to reach me that one time otherwise, when Oengus Og tapped into his magic and gave him that link. But I don’t know, wouldn’t he have found us by now if it was easy to find us? So who knows.’

There was a minute of intense, awkward silence, and then Gwyn pushed up and walked away and didn’t come back. A moment later, Augus pushed up with far less grace and went after him, calling his name quietly. Mosk knew he’d upset Gwyn and he felt bad that he’d brought it up just because he knew it would distract them all from talking about Mosk being manipulated by Davix.

He winced as his nail cut into his skin, then stood and walked deeper into the woods, away from the ice, away from Gwyn and Augus and their stupid relationship. He rubbed at his face and then grabbed the lead of the rope and yanked at it repeatedly, jerking at his arm painfully, annoyed, frustrated with himself. For the first time in a while he wished they were in a city or a village, he wished there was a tavern, he wished there was a way to not think.

He didn’t know if it would work anymore. Not after Stertes. Not after Eran. 

It was an oak that caught him, its trunk bearing his weight as he leaned against it and stared up into the canopy and thought of his mamatree.

A small, shifting weight against his hip, and he shoved his hand into his pocket and drew out the shell. Something about that conversation had caused his magic to leak, though from the amount of moss growing on it, it wasn’t leaking much. He scraped all the moss off, letting it fall to the ground, then made sure his magic was closed up. He wondered if Gwyn’s dra’ocht had been so strong that Mosk needed to unconsciously bolster himself with magic to deal with it.

He put the shell back and dug around in his pocket for the opal that had been warmed by his body heat. He drew it out and stared at the oak leaf carved upon it, then tilted it back and forth in the light, watching the green-blue refract as beautifully as iridescence on a beetle’s or bird’s wings.

Eran had bought it for him. When he’d been angry and they hadn’t been talking, Eran still went and found something special at a market that meant something and gave it to him. Mosk folded the gemstone tightly into his palm.

He still didn’t know what to get Eran in return. He didn’t know how to help. It felt like all he had left were small, pitiable gestures that Eran didn’t notice because they were too insignificant to matter.

His palm was covered in sweat by the time he put the opal back in his pocket. Nearby on the low branches of a beech tree, a small group of starlings chattered and sang and the white dots on their feathers sparkled like tiny galaxies. Mosk thought the beech looked friendly, as though it wanted to carry the weight of the world in order that it should thrive. But he couldn’t check if that was how the tree really felt, he couldn’t hear its whispers and its gossip. He missed the trees after being away from them for so long, but he knew a door had closed between him and the forest and it would never open again.

The world was duller because his magic was closed up. He opened some of his magical meridians – those circles that the Raven Prince had shown him lived invisibly but powerfully in his body – and sound was sharper, the light on the trees leaves’ were brighter, but they still didn’t speak to him. His magic made him feel weighed down, but he felt so heavy in the first place it was nearly grounding.

The imprint of the oak leaf was pressed like a brand, reddened and flushed into his palm. He stared at it, then closed his eyes in despair.

*

That night, after Eran was asleep and Mosk had tucked more blankets around him in the hopes that the warmth would somehow keep the fire in Eran safer, he sat on his boulder and took off the necklace the Raven Prince had given him, holding the pale green crystal in his hands. He turned it, studied it, held it up to the light of the stars and the moon, and rubbed his fingers over it and then closed his eyes and tried to listen to it with his magic, which felt pathetic and useless. But he could sense the magic of others and so surely he could sense the magic in this?

He felt nothing.

So he opened up all of his meridians, feeling unsafe as he did so, checking that it didn’t wake Eran or the others, and tried pushing his magic directly against the crystal to see what happened. If anything the crystal felt more inert than before. It was like the more he dumped his magic upon it, the more it became a dead stone and nothing more. All that happened was the shell in his pocket became a ball of moss instead.

He thought of what the Raven Prince had taught him during their brief friendship and closed up all of his meridians. The Raven Prince had always valued self-control, he was the one that had taught Mosk to keep a better eye on his loose, leaking magic. Mosk took a deep breath and opened up the smallest sliver of magic he could manage, a trickle of it flowing out of him.

Carefully, he directed it to the pendant and to his amazement, felt it instantly become hot in his hands. But the crystal did nothing else. Mosk frowned at it, vexed, and kept prodding with the trickle of water and after that initial response, nothing happened.

His brow furrowed and his tongue stuck a little out of the side of his mouth as he tried to narrow that trickle of magic even further. Now it was getting hard. Easy to bring out a lot of magic at once and do something ridiculous with it, but narrowing the flow of magic while not stopping it entirely seemed almost impossible. There was a point at which he wavered, sometimes closing up his magic entirely, or going back to that trickle, but he knew there had to be a way to narrow it further.

He didn’t even know if it would do anything, he broke out into a sweat and his breathing turned shaky and he began to feel the same dizziness he felt when he made that plant for the Raven Prince.

He had to stop, rubbing at his head and his aching chest, and then he watched Eran again and remembered why he had to do this. Why he had to try.

It was an hour later – now sitting on the ground because he didn’t trust himself not to fall off the boulder – when he managed to hold his magic in what felt like a thread of finely spun wool through the eye of a large needle. That was the image he had to use, because imagining his magic as water meant he could only see it dripping, and its flow became inconsistent.

He carefully brushed that finer flow of magic against the crystal, then gasped when he saw the Raven Prince appear before him in that transparent violet-blue mirror creature Mosk had seen the night he’d eavesdropped on the Raven Prince and Augus’ conversation.

 _‘Well done,’_ the Raven Prince said in a voice that echoed oddly. The Raven Prince looked somewhere above him, but Mosk still ached to hear his voice. _‘Of course, it’s not really me, and I’m not really here. Did you find it hard? Did you manage this in seconds? Or did it take you much longer? It’s hard, isn’t it, finding that control? You’ll need it. Refine it further. Believe it or not, what you needed to access the first lesson in this crystal is still crude magic. You’re so used to bombastic displays that I suspect these basics will confound you. Refine it further, Mosk. The crystal won’t waken to you until you do. I must say, it’s strange saying this upon the Mantissa. I can see you on the deck right now, you have no idea that I’m doing this but ah, you just looked at me, perhaps you do? No, never mind, you still can’t navigate the fine threads.’_

The apparition vanished, leaving Mosk breathless, stunned and clutching the crystal in his hand with a fervent desperation to see his friend again. He tried poking his fraying conduit of magic at the crystal again, but nothing happened. He wasn’t surprised. After that, he closed up his meridians properly and breathed hard, exhausted.

He was supposed to refine it _further?_

Shakily, he put the necklace back on and pressed the crystal against his skin. He felt dizzy and sick, he crawled under the many blankets and pressed himself close to the furnace of Eran’s body.

 _If you love me, please love me,_ he thought.

He clawed at his own forearm, ignoring the rope and digging into his skin. He was so ugly in his neediness.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

He didn’t expect to get any sleep, it was close to dawn and his body felt like it was throbbing with overuse. In the end he drifted off after only minutes, the ground unsteady beneath him and the sky wobbling even though he couldn’t see it behind his closed eyes.

*

The next morning, Augus’ eyes were livelier, and Mosk watched as he walked around exploring their surroundings with interest. Ash said something quietly, they both laughed and embraced each other, and then Augus reached up and tugged playfully on Ash’s hair and they shared smiles and gleaming eyes that made them look so similar, even though they weren’t related.

Eran went over to them, passing Mosk and approaching Augus and actually speaking with him. Mosk carefully opened up his magic – a little thicker than a strand of spun wool even though it hurt his head – to listen to them. No one here would punish him for eavesdropping, and Mosk’s jealousy that Eran would talk to Augus, but not Mosk, wounded him so badly he felt faint.

‘You seem much better this morning,’ Eran was saying. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ Augus said. ‘I hope it holds. And I cannot keep drinking Gwyn’s blood every day to sustain it, so we have talked about…’

‘You can take mine,’ Ash said eagerly.

‘Because the answer is weakening you further when you possess no necklace with charmed magic like I do,’ Augus said, rolling his eyes. ‘And we know we cannot share it. No, if you’re amenable, Eran, and perhaps Mosk and Julvia as well – though I’d like to avoid Julvia – I’d like to see if-’

‘Of course,’ Eran said. His voice was still duller than usual. It was warm, but it wasn’t full of fire and life like normal. But Mosk was sitting on his own watching them, and Eran wasn’t talking to him. Had Mosk done something wrong? Were Eran and Augus really friends like that? Was Eran not really friends like that with Mosk?

‘There’s also other fae,’ Ash said.

‘There is,’ Augus said slowly, ‘but that will be harder. We will almost certainly have to wait until we’re in Summervale, or even one of the cities beyond. There’s also the fact that the taste and raw power in the blood seems to influence how well it feeds me. I don’t know how to explain it, but Gwyn thinks the Raven Prince is allowing me to feed upon the concentrated power carried in others, and it’s not about blood alone. Gwyn’s the King, and I think Inner Court and Court will be helpful, but I’m not sure about any status lower than that. It’s only a theory, but Gwyn understands these things better than I do.’

‘Mosk’s magic grows things pretty easily,’ Ash said. ‘That seems like a positive, healing kind of magic. So maybe he’s the best candidate?’

Augus looked over at Mosk, and Mosk didn’t look away. He stared back levelly. He didn’t have to say yes. He didn’t have to help anyone.

‘Perhaps,’ Augus said finally, his voice softer than before, though it didn’t sound like he was avoiding being overheard. Sometimes his voice just got soft. ‘But Mosk doesn’t trust me, we shall have to be careful how we broach the subject with him.’

‘I could talk to him, if you want,’ Eran said.

_You could talk to me anyway! You could have chosen to talk to me instead of him!_

‘No,’ Augus said. ‘At any rate, it’s not a concern for today. And you? How are you faring? Gwyn said that it has been a difficult time, the last week of being on the Mantissa, all that ocean exposure.’

‘It got to me,’ Eran admitted after a pause. ‘But it’s been… I mean, it’s, there’s nothing…’

‘Eran, are you trying to lie to me?’ Augus said, amused. But the teasing tone gave way to sincerity. ‘Gwyn spoke to me about Stertes, about all of it, you don’t have to pretend you’re fine around me or any of us. This is a hard journey for everyone.’

‘Yes,’ Eran said weakly.

‘Where’s Julvia?’ Augus said.

‘Foraging for waterweed and other food,’ Ash said. ‘She’ll be able to start eating properly now that we’re on land. She’ll be looking for those little fairies. But we haven’t found any around here. It looks all the local fae cleared out because of the ice.’

‘I’ll go find her in a few minutes,’ Augus said.

‘It’s just good to see you more like yourself,’ Eran said. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

‘With any luck, I’ll never have cause to see the ocean again in my entire life,’ Augus said with wry cheer. ‘And no Each Uisge has ever had as much of it as I have and survived to tell the tale. Being back on land has helped. This charm…’ Augus touched it carefully. ‘I wish I’d had a chance to thank the Raven Prince properly. I daresay no small amount of magic went into it.’

They kept talking about their final farewells with the Raven Prince, and Mosk frowned as his senses prickled. He turned abruptly, looking towards the ice, feeling that prickling nudge again. The ice was awake, he knew it was no longer dormant even if it wasn’t moving.

He stood up from where he’d been crouched at the base of an alder tree and set off towards it, dropping the eavesdropping so he could focus more of his magic on the ice. 

A crackling surge of energy invisibly charged the world around him. The ice reared up so quickly it was like an animal pouncing, surging and forming into a new shape as Eran shrieked behind him and the others shouted for Gwyn. Mosk heard their footsteps and ignored them until he heard footsteps pounding towards him.

He turned and saw Eran coming for him, eyes wild and filled with terror. Mosk lifted his hand and grew a vine of wood from a nearby tree. It wrapped around Eran’s torso several times and held him back.

_‘MOSK!’_

Gwyn, too, was suddenly there and running for him, and Mosk grit his teeth. Smoke and flames enveloped the branch around Eran. His hands were red and burning the wood away.

He needed to do this before they stopped him. They didn’t trust him and they didn’t want him to try. They’d never let him touch the ice and he’d always wanted to.

It was always fine in his dreams.

He ran towards its seething, violent form and then stopped a foot away from its painful cold. It was a kind of temperature that ate the very air from his lungs.

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ he said to the ice. He reached out and pressed his hand to it and beyond the searing pain he felt a chime of recognition. His heartsong really was in there. And all of Davix’s magic, so much of it that it was dizzying. He felt how the ice stretched down far into the ground like a tree. He felt how it stretched across so much of the country, and he felt the hollow shapes within it, all of the bodies, so many that Mosk couldn’t count them all. And in there, the hollow shape of Oengus Og, of Eran’s entire family and the rest of the ambaros. In there, the hollow shapes of every animal it had taken and enfolded into itself. In there, a ghost of a Mage that was trapped and lost.

Mosk’s whole body was covered in a rime of frost, it clumped his eyelashes together. But he didn’t move his palm away from the ice, and the ice didn’t burn his skin as it had burned and scarred Eran’s. It didn’t enfold him or eat him. It ground down into the earth and paused like a wild animal. It had been recognised, it had been seen. There was a living creature on this earth it couldn’t kill by interacting with it and Mosk knew it was curious, so curious, the only thing it now felt aside from its hunger and its desperation.

He linked to it as easily as he used to link to every tree.

A swallowed down noise of pain as he pressed his hand harder into the ice. He imagined that he was drawing its magic into him. That it unlocked from its form of ice and flowed like water into his meridians. He imagined a space inside himself for his old heartsong to return to. His magic was blown so wide open that he couldn’t tell where he stopped and the ice began.

The ice began to melt.

At first he thought it was the sweat on his palm, and then he realised as the wetness became trickles spilling rapidly to the ground that the ice was melting for Mosk the way it refused to melt for anyone else. And Mosk felt dizzy and powerful, gasping as he felt magic that wasn’t his flowing into him. He thought of Davix talking about Olphix’s gift of consumption, his ability to steal the magic of others, and he almost smiled. It seemed he had a gift too.

He wasn’t taking much magic, but Davix’s magic was stretched out in the ice over the world, and he was taking the magic that lived _here._ He recognised it as Davix’s because he knew that magical signature, felt it in his nightmares, the same magic that had ripped him open for months when they’d tortured him.

It was easy, too. He knew he couldn’t have done this in the beginning, because he couldn’t use his magic, they’d taken it from him. But he wondered if he could have done it before they boarded the Mantissa. He wondered if he could have saved the Seelie Court.

 _And they didn’t want to let me._ _They’re all fools._

He tamed the ice and sucked out so much magic that what remained of the ice went quiescent again. He felt the moment its lust to eat and feed died down into something weaker, water flooded around his feet and oozed up from the soil and he stepped back and dropped the physical contact but still felt the link. The ice was tired.

The ice was dangerous to the rest of their party. He knew that. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ice could not be allowed to touch anyone, it would eat them up as surely as it had eaten up whole populations of people already.

When he turned around, the others were staring at him. Gwyn had finally broken the wood Mosk had grown around him, Eran had burned his, but they stood there looking at him like they’d never seen him before.

‘I just wanted to try it,’ Mosk said calmly. His hand was burning where it had touched the ice, and the tips of his fingers were blue. But they weren’t scarred. ‘You guys never let me try anything.’

He turned back to the ice, and then – simply because he could – he stepped towards it and melted it further with his other hand, dizzy with a creeping, dark delight that he could do this. He could do this for them. He was helpful. He was going to _matter._


	2. The Deserted City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to add today, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and that you're all taking care!

_Eran_

*

The numb, empty headspace that plagued him since returning to land snapped all at once, when Mosk revealed that he could touch, melt and destroy the ice. Not only that, but in the next two days, Mosk demonstrated that he could touch it at one point and weaken it at every other in the vicinity, so that the ice all around them became normal ice that melted on its own. Mosk hardly talked to anyone, he stared with something like hatred and disdain at Gwyn when the King tried to lecture him for doing something so foolhardy in the first place.

‘I _knew,’_ Mosk said. ‘You never trust me, but I could’ve probably saved the Seelie Court if you’d let me touch it before. Maybe I could’ve saved Oengus Og. And that wouldn’t be my fault, that’d be _yours_ for not trusting me.’

Half a day later, Gwyn went straight into the Seelie Court, and came out not with jewels or clipaks or some other treasure, but with the creamy white armour that Albion had displayed in the Court to remind everyone that Gwyn had betrayed them. Augus stared in exasperation and affection as Gwyn stuffed it into their travel pack.

‘It’s not even going to fit you anymore,’ Augus said.

‘I don’t care. It’s mine,’ Gwyn replied, hefting the pack over his shoulders, a half-smile on his face that made his grim appearance seem suddenly softer and gentler.

As they travelled on foot, they saw the ice relinquish its dead bodies, none of them coming back to life as Eran secretly hoped they would. The skin on the bodies looked blackish and blue, some rotted more quickly than others. The smell of putrefaction permeated the air reminding them all of what the plague of ice had been doing. Eran imagined his family being released from the ice and thought of burial rites and rituals and felt like he was eating despair more often than he was eating charred food.

Mosk still drew the eyeliner every morning, he went to bed with Eran every evening. But Eran felt inadequate to Mosk’s power and trauma. Eran had been powerful and magical by afrit and ambaros standards, but by Mosk’s side, his flame was just a flame. He could only melt the ice after Mosk had touched it. Eran could not rid himself of the feeling of Stertes’ hands all over his body, his fingers pushing and pressing in places that Eran still felt sickened by multiple times a day, but by Mosk’s side it was nothing more than a casual molesting. Mosk had been hurt not just once, but hundreds of times, what Eran experienced wasn’t anything at all compared to the months of trauma Mosk knew at the hands of Olphix and Davix.

They left the broken Seelie Court behind, their way ahead often blocked completely by the ice. Mosk turned it to meltwater, his rain-grey eyes gleaming each time. He was becoming unrecognisable. Eran could tell the others were wary of him, and Eran didn’t want to feel that same wariness. After all, Mosk pressed close to him every evening and was trying so hard not to push him.

He felt like Mosk didn’t really need him anymore. Not as he watched Mosk boldly walk up to the ice, no signs of the dizziness or vertigo he used to have, casually pressing his hands against it and melting ice that towered over them into tunnels they could pass safely through.

Eran didn’t like that he was still so afraid of the ice. Every time he passed even weakened, brittle ice that showed no signs of being alive anymore, he thought of his family, he touched the scar on his forearm, he felt sick, his fire muted and became small.

They saw no living fae. Gwyn grimly informed them all that these used to be some of the most populated lands in the Seelie Courtlands, but everyone had either run or been consumed by the ice. Eran recognised the path he and Mosk had taken to Summervale, but where there had once been rolling fields and flowering meadows and fairy cows, there was now rolling grim edifices of ice, no birdsong, no bees buzzing in major scales, no bells chiming in perfect harmony.

In some of those towering edifices, they saw the shapes of fairy cows frozen in their last act of running frantically from the ice, their mouths open in a silent bellow of terror, their eyes permanently rolling, the whites exposed.

One of the fairy cows crashed dead and lifeless to the flooding meadow beneath it as Mosk worked on the ice all around them from a safer point on the path.

‘Fucking hell,’ Ash said. ‘Fucking hell.’

‘It’s worse in the deserts,’ Gwyn said, looking sympathetically at Eran. 

‘A friend said Sounhaqh’s fallen,’ Eran said, staring at the cow’s pearly white hair glistening wetly. ‘I can’t even imagine. It rose like one of those rogue waves above Aram’kelton and crashed down on us in seconds. It was so fast. If it acted like that with Sounhaqh…’

His fingers clenched, he realised Mosk had turned from where he stood by the ice and was looking at Eran with something like fear on his face. Eran knew they needed to talk, but what would he say? He didn’t know what Mosk needed, and Mosk seemed to be doing just fine without him.

‘I’ve been there,’ Ash said quietly. ‘Only twice. I liked the southern spice markets.’

‘The southern spice markets?’ Eran said, a smile crossing his face remembering them. ‘Why?’

‘Best arak I’ve ever had,’ Ash said, looking up at the sky. ‘I didn’t know at the time, I was just travelling to go somewhere, which is the main reason why I travelled a lot of the time. I heard a story in the human realm, an old man talking about afrit-blessed arak, and it made me wonder if such a thing existed.’

‘It really did,’ Eran said wistfully.

‘You think it doesn’t exist now?’

Eran thought of Amhar, that small collection of fire fae refugees that Amhar had mentioned. He wondered how many people had truly gotten away and what would be left. They could rebuild some things, but not others. If no one who distilled the sacred arak survived, then it would be gone. The fae could only try and imitate it, and hope that one day people forgot what true southern Sounhaqh arak tasted like.

He called heat to his hand and pressed it to his neck, letting it flow down into his chest like his euma used to when he felt sick.

The Mantissa had given him a way to stop thinking about all of it. But the ice was no longer avoidable. Even with Mosk defeating it, Eran only saw what he’d lost.

*

They reached the city of Summervale and no longer stopped in horrified awe when they saw that it was deserted, half of it ensconced in ice. Where the buildings had been tall, the ice was taller. In some cases it mimicked the shapes of the multiple storey buildings further up in the sky, as though it was trying to dream of its own city. It glittered and shone, sometimes opaque, sometimes transparent, never melting until Mosk touched it. Bodies contained like bruises within it dropped heavily to the cobblestone paths or crashed into buildings.

The main street was churned up and destroyed by the ice, so they walked down a side street until they reached the central village square that Eran recognised from last time. He saw the hotel where he’d been rejected from for not having enough money or anything to barter for a stay. That was the first place he’d learned he was considered a refugee by other fae. Now there were no bustling fae in rich clothing walking up and down the streets. No carriages led by all manner of animals. There were no birds, no fat plump pigeons, no insects humming and no flowers to be pollinated in the planters.

‘We’ll find somewhere to stay,’ Gwyn said, looking around. ‘Mosk, can you deactivate the ice? Your hands can handle it?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, rubbing his hands together. Eran thought his fingers still looked bluish. Mosk hadn’t let anyone inspect them properly, and whenever Eran looked at him and thought of something to say, Mosk quickly asked if Eran was okay, then changed the subject.

‘This is a lovely city,’ Julvia said. ‘Even like this. It must have been beautiful.’

‘It was,’ Eran said, looking around. He caught the surprise on Gwyn’s face. ‘I stayed here on the way to the Seelie Court. They were getting ready for midsummer.’

Gwyn’s expression shifted, he raised a hand almost like he was about to press it to his chest as he looked around at the deserted buildings. But his hand dropped, and his shoulders rose and fell on a heavy breath.

‘I miss midsummer celebrations,’ he said. ‘It was one of the few things I liked about the Seelie Court.’

‘Midwinter is lovely too,’ Augus said.

‘Yes,’ Gwyn said. ‘It is. And it’s more home for me than midsummer ever was. But still, I remember what midsummers used to be like in Summervale. The musicians and the travellers from all around, the fireworks at night. All those people. And how many of them dead?’

Gwyn looked towards the ice two streets over, where it towered high upon itself, a glut of bodies within it. Eran thought Gwyn would be callous about all the death he was seeing, given how many people he’d killed as a War General, but for a few minutes Gwyn didn’t speak and no one else broke the silence.

‘If I remove the ice, the people that ran away can start coming back,’ Mosk said. ‘So I’ll do that, okay?’

He walked off and a minute later – when Mosk was out of sight – Eran realised that Mosk just intended to work on his own, out of sight of the others.

‘I’m going to keep an eye on him,’ Eran said. ‘Where will you all be?’

‘Here,’ Gwyn said. ‘We won’t leave until he’s done.’

Eran jogged after Mosk and caught up with him down an empty, abandoned alleyway. Even here were little planter boxes with nothing growing inside of them. Eran bet that every single corner of Summervale – even the most unsavoury ones – was still pretty.

‘What are you doing going off on your own like that?’ Eran said.

‘You could’ve stayed with them,’ Mosk said, and then Eran stilled when he saw how close the ice was. It had spilled out of a doorway in a sludgelike appearance, though it was completely hard and crystalline, as clear as glass. Mosk pressed his hands to it and Eran heard a cracking elsewhere that meant the ice was turning brittle, losing whatever kept it alive.

Mosk was getting faster at turning the magical ice back into regular ice, and he was getting faster at melting it.

‘What does it feel like?’ Eran said

‘Magic.’ Mosk hummed and then looked up at Eran from where he crouched over the ice. ‘It has a personality. I don’t think it ever knew it was killing people. And then I think it became desperate to just meet someone who would know it and not run. I don’t know how to explain it. The ice is kind of like a sad animal. I know that’s not what you want to hear, with everything it did.’

‘It wasn’t trying to kill us?’ Eran said weakly.

‘I really think it was just looking for Olphix, or whatever it remembered as family. It’s hungry and it’s dangerous, it can’t be argued with or reasoned with, but because I can’t be killed by it, it’s like it calms down for me. It’s…peaceful, because it got what it wanted.’

‘How do you change it back?’

‘I explained it to Gwyn, you were there.’

Eran was there, but he didn’t remember well. He spaced out sometimes, it was hard to stay interested all the time when the scenery was constantly changing, when he had no idea what was coming. In the distance, sharp crashing sounds as one of the ice towers fell. Beneath their feet, water began to trickle. Eran was frightened of it the first time he’d seen it, but he realised soon after that it was truly lifeless. It was just water.

‘I remove the magic and the heartsong powering it,’ Mosk said, turning back to the ice.

‘How?’

‘I absorb it.’

Eran stood there, staring at him. Absorbing Davix’s magic? Absorbing his old heartsong?

‘Is that changing you?’ Eran said.

‘I mean, I don’t know, but you all want this ice gone, don’t you? So it’s not like we have an alternative. I don’t even think Olphix could do this. I mean maybe, if he knew Davix was _in_ the ice, but I’d say he felt Davix’s magic and just didn’t want to melt it. You know, like, it was the last thing his brother left in the world that was nearly alive, so why not keep it around? If a piece of Chaley’s heart was left in some monstrous thing, but it was all I had left of my family, I think I’d let that thing live.’

Mosk jerked his hand back from the ice abruptly, like he’d been injured, then shoved it into his pocket. He stared at the water now racing in rivulets down the cobblestones. Some of it drained away, but Eran had learned that it would also flood streets, meadows, create new lakes. Augus said most of it would sink back into the earth over time, or create new life in the plants around them, or even be turned into rain.

‘Mosk,’ Eran said firmly, ‘show me your hands.’

‘No,’ Mosk said. ‘I’m good.’

‘It wasn’t a request.’

Mosk’s eyes swung to Eran’s with a mixture of fear and nervousness. And Eran worried. Worried that he was being demanding, or even cruel. Worried that he was to Mosk, what Stertes had been to Eran.

_Please stop. Please stop thinking that way. You know it’s not true._

Eran stepped forwards and took the rope around Mosk’s wrist into his grip. As Mosk made a small sound in the back of his throat, Eran realised he hadn’t done this for days. Maybe even a week. Had he been that lost inside of himself? Inside his mind? And Mosk…had he needed it? Or had he been fine?

Mosk didn’t look fine, he looked far more undone by this than he did by the ice or anything else. His eyes were wide, he looked desperately in front of them at an abandoned storefront. Water streamed past them and Eran guided them up some steps to a portico of marble and red, green and yellow mosaics.

He pulled Mosk’s hands from his pockets and was stunned at how cold they felt. Worse, the blue-purple tips of his fingers, how swollen and different the skin felt.

‘Mosk…’

‘It’s fine. I’m Court status, we usually walk a bit before I have to do more. Like, it definitely doesn’t hurt me like it’s hurt everyone else, so it’s fine. Please, don’t like- Don’t worry. You need rest, don’t you? We can go back now. We can go and get some rest.’

Eran’s chest hurt. He gathered up Mosk’s hands and pressed his palms together, and then held Mosk’s hands between his own. Mosk winced at that, and Eran hadn’t even begun to draw more heat to his fingers. He had a lot of heat circulating through the core of him because the ice made everything colder and dropped the temperature around them, but he knew his hands weren’t any warmer than normal.

Mosk’s frostbite was serious, and even if he’d heal from it, the nerves were reluctant to waken. They’d been damaged.

‘Shhh,’ Eran said softly. ‘It won’t take long. And then we’ll both get some rest.’

‘You need it more. You need rest. And maybe… I could grow something for you. Anything you- _Ow._ Stop it, _stop!’_

Mosk tried to tug his hands free of Eran’s, but he didn’t use his magic, as though he’d forgotten he had it. Eran kept up his grip and didn’t let go. He’d barely called any heat to his hands.

‘I’m not hurting you,’ Eran said.

‘You are,’ Mosk said, staring past him now. ‘Maybe you don’t know, because you’re so used to heat.’

‘Mosk, your fingers are _blue.’_

He thought of the first time Mosk had sprinted towards the ice, and Eran had thought for one heart-stopping moment that Mosk was going to kill himself because he couldn’t handle it anymore. Mosk had grown those thick, sap-filled branches around him, coiling tightly but so safely that Eran hadn’t been injured or even bruised. Getting his fire through that sap had been a challenge, and by the time he’d managed it, he realised that Mosk was melting the ice. That he’d run towards it to melt it.

But it was so dangerous, so terrifying, and when Gwyn had grown angry, Mosk had stared at them all like none of them were worth his time. Mosk stared at Gwyn with that mix of mutiny and disdain, and Eran thought of the Raven Prince’s words and felt so inadequate to this dryad that just kept getting stronger, more powerful and so wilful he was a wild, feral thing they walked with on their journey. How could he stand between Mosk and his villainy? How could he do anything at all?

Mosk whimpered as Eran kept his hands around Mosk’s. ‘Calm down,’ Eran said, his voice softer, gentler. ‘It’s the blood circulating again, the nerves are waking up. I’m not burning you.’

The heat he drew to his hands came slowly, over long minutes, and he realised that Mosk’s arms and face were no longer covered in frost like they were that first time by the Seelie Court. They were all taking for granted how quickly Mosk improved at anything he set his mind to. Mosk was getting better at working with the ice, but Eran hadn’t realised it affected Mosk’s hands so badly. Had he noticed before now? No, he hadn’t been paying attention.

‘It should be you,’ Mosk said, staring at Eran with something unreadable on his face.

‘What should be?’

‘I should be looking after you.’

Eran’s hands tightened around Mosk’s where he held them together. He didn’t know what to say and looked down, then frowned when he saw a bruise on the underside of Mosk’s wrist. He shifted Mosk’s forearms until he could see them better and saw little crescent moon cuts in several places over Mosk’s skin. He nearly demanded right then what had caused them, then realised they were in the shape of nails.

‘Should you?’ Eran said, his voice hard in spite of himself. ‘Should you be looking after me? What have you been doing to yourself?’

‘Nothing,’ Mosk said, eyes widening when he noticed what Eran was staring at. ‘Nothing really. Just… Because…’

It reminded Eran of when he’d tried to uselessly convince Augus that he was fine, that nothing was wrong, and his Seelie blood wouldn’t let him.

Mosk shuddered and looked away, closing his eyes. His hands twitched in Eran’s palms and his fingertips seemed to be losing the worst of their chill. Eran carefully called more heat to his hands, and Mosk gasped and shook his head, wincing.

‘I know,’ Eran said carefully. ‘It’s getting better, isn’t it? Can you feel things yet?’

‘Tingling, like needles,’ Mosk said.

‘It won’t last.’

‘It’s been like that for days anyway,’ Mosk said, shrugging.

‘Why haven’t you been talking to me?’

‘You’re tired and upset,’ Mosk said. ‘And Eran, my stuff is always…big, and annoying. I know what you’re like. If I come to you with all my stuff, all the time, you just focus on that. But your stuff is big too. It is. I know what it’s like when life is so exhausting that everything else is just too hard. I don’t want to be another thing that’s too hard. That’s not fair.’

Eran stood there, shocked, because he’d assumed that Mosk would see all of Eran’s pain as small or insignificant. Eran was struggling himself not to see it that way, and Mosk had been here all alone, trying to give Eran space and clearly struggling because of it.

‘Mosk,’ Eran said, and Mosk shook his head.

‘I’m fine. I’m fine, really. I’m helping everyone, right? And I’m getting rid of the ice, and that’s good, isn’t it? I wish I could have learned all of this before…before your family. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Eran.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It is, though.’ Mosk’s wrists twitched, like he wanted to pull his hands from Eran’s. ‘It’s my fault. Even Stertes… I’m sorry. I’m-’

Mosk made a noise of shock when Eran stepped towards him and pulled him close, letting go of his hands only to wrap his arms so tightly around Mosk that Mosk’s cold fingers were pressed to Eran’s chest. Eran tucked his face into Mosk’s neck and his arms hurt from holding him so tightly, and Mosk didn’t complain once. It had to be hurting him.

‘You’ve been trying to help,’ Eran said roughly.

‘I’ll do anything you want. Anything. But no, it’s so unfair, that’s so unfair,’ Mosk pushed away hard enough that Eran let him go. Mosk ended up leaning against a wrought iron balustrade, staring down at the water flowing past them. It was only a few centimetres deep, but the current was fast, gravity drawing it wherever it wanted to go.

‘Why is it unfair?’

‘I’m trying to fix you because I’m…’ Mosk cut off the word before Eran could guess at it. ‘It’s selfish. I’m just trying to help because I’m selfish. Everything I do is like that. I’m upset that you’re upset, I’m trying to just let you be…whatever you need to be. Do you need space now? I can go. I’ll warm my hands up. If we don’t travel for a day, they’ll warm up properly. Okay?’

He had a way of talking which reminded Eran of how Mosk had been towards the end of their stay on the Mantissa, when he’d grown more honest, but also anxious. He wondered if Mosk used to talk like this before his family was killed. If he talked in those quick, rushing sentences, desperately trying to patch up whatever he’d broken before he even knew it was broken, like every time he opened his mouth he had to apologise for speaking.

It cast Mosk’s fierce, stoic actions in a different light. Eran wasn’t used to being the one who other people wanted to help. He was usually the one helping others. But he could see that Mosk was trying his hardest at a time when he needed people too. And Eran could talk to Augus, and even Ash, and Julvia, and Eran didn’t think Mosk had ever really talked to any of their group, except maybe Gwyn.

‘We should go back,’ Eran said finally. ‘I’ll warm your hands up properly, okay? We’ll find somewhere to sleep, get some rest. Maybe you can let me look after you.’

‘No,’ Mosk said, refusing to look at him. ‘You can’t let me trick you like that.’

‘Mosk…’ Eran ran a hand through his hair and then reached out and took Mosk’s wrist by the rope around it. He felt the shiver that went through Mosk’s body, could tell that Mosk was keenly aware of it even if he was refusing to look. ‘We’re both doing our best, that’s all that matters. You’re not bad, it’s not selfish to want someone to notice you sometimes.’

‘It is.’

‘It’s _not.’_

‘It is!’ Mosk cried, stricken. ‘You don’t understand. But it is bad!’

‘Then is it bad for me? Am I bad because I want to be noticed sometimes?’

Eran thought of Mosk making sure he was always fully covered by blankets at night. He thought of the fact that sometimes he woke covered by extra blankets. He thought of the way Mosk did his eyeliner automatically, the way Mosk was always keeping an eye on him. What he’d interpreted one way, looked different now.

‘You’re not bad,’ Mosk said.

Eran heard it, the way Mosk just thought Eran was good, and that he was bad by default, and therefore anything he wanted was bad. He couldn’t change that in a day, but he could make sure Mosk wasn’t being completely neglected.

‘Come on,’ Eran said. ‘Let’s go back to the group. You’ve removed the…whatever it is – the essence? – from the ice?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, then his eyes closed as Eran squeezed his wrist. ‘Yes, Eran.’

‘Good. That’s really good, Mosk. Let’s go back, okay?’

Mosk barely acknowledged him. Eran knew Mosk was exhausted too and lonelier than all of them. Maybe he couldn’t stand between Mosk and his villainy, but he wanted to stand between Mosk and his self-hatred, even if he could only manage it for a short time.

*

When Gwyn said they could stay anywhere, because all the buildings were likely deserted, Eran automatically chose the hotel where he’d been first been rejected for not having enough coin to pay his way. Gwyn looked at him curiously when Eran had picked it, but he didn’t question it. They all walked up the creamy stone steps together and stood as a group on the polished floors, and the place seemed full of silence and echoes.

‘It’s still very clean,’ Julvia said. Even her soft voice seemed harder among the marble and glass.

‘Magic is preserving it,’ Gwyn said. ‘All right, I’d like us all to stay on the first floor, please, in case anything happens. I’m going to go scouting to see if there’s anyone left in the city.’

‘On your own?’ Augus said, tilting his head.

‘You may pick our room,’ Gwyn said.

‘Ah, a room for just the two of us?’ Augus’ eyes narrowed like he was pleased, and Eran was sure that he saw Gwyn’s cheeks colour as he walked out of the hotel again. Augus hummed, smiling, as he left. ‘Well, how novel. It shall be lovely to sleep in a bed tonight, with a real mattress, clean sheets.’

‘God yes,’ Ash breathed, which surprised Eran because he seemed like the kind of person to enjoy camping. ‘Do you think the plumbing still works?’

‘Oh, a _bath,’_ Julvia said.

‘We’ll only know if we try it. Chances are if it’s been magically preserved to work…’ Augus trailed off and then looked to Mosk, his eyebrows lifting as though checking something. Eran was confused and Mosk more so, even taking a small step back. ‘Mosk? Do you know if the ice would disrupt other magical spells in the area?’

Mosk shook his head, not meeting anyone’s eyes. ‘Gwyn said the magic here was keeping the place clean. So obviously some of it’s working.’

‘True, all right, we’ll check for ourselves. Thank you.’

Mosk shrugged and refused to look up. Eran frowned, he knew Mosk didn’t feel comfortable around Augus, but this was outright withdrawal. Augus looked contemplative as well, and then turned away and stretched, looking at the large pack that Gwyn had left on the floor with some distaste.

‘I’ll take it!’ Eran said.

‘Find a room for yourselves first,’ Augus said. ‘There’s no hurry.’

Eran and Mosk wandered the corridors on the first floor. The floors were marble, with thick embroidered rugs muffling their footsteps. The walls were hung with paintings, the colours gauzy and soft, flowers seeming alive within their paint. None of the doors were locked, and all of the rooms were large. Some had many beds, as though intended for families and groups. Others had small beds. Others had nests. One had a large cocoon made of carefully arranged twigs, and Eran recalled that the receptionist had been some kind of insect fae, so maybe they catered to fae who used things like that to sleep. Eran had never met fae like that before. Where he came from, the golden moths were just moths, they didn’t turn into anything else.

Down one shadowy corridor, at the very end, they opened a door and saw a family of what looked like wild boars nestled together with their little piglets, until the largest shifted into a hybrid form.

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ the fae said gruffly, voice distorted by his tusks. ‘We just need somewhere to keep our family safe. Please. We’ve been running for so long. This is the safest place we’ve found.’

The little piglets were squealing together, pushing their faces into their father’s legs, and all trying to hide behind him.

‘Do you need anything?’ Eran said. ‘Food, or anything?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve found food. We’ve found clipaks. But we’ve lost our home, we just need somewhere to stay for a while. Our children are too young. We’ll be no trouble, we promise.’

‘I’ve lost my home too,’ Eran said.

‘I’ve lost mine,’ Mosk said. ‘But the ice is beginning to disappear now. No one knows why, but it looks like it’s finally starting to get better.’

‘Sometimes it plays pretend,’ the boar-fae said.

‘No, it’s melting,’ Mosk said. ‘We saw it melting out there. And it’s not reforming. We even saw it happening along the way here, it’s never reformed.’

The female sow-fae on the ground looked up at what must have been her partner, and even the little piglets fell silent.

‘We’ll leave you alone,’ Eran said. ‘But seriously, it has started to melt. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. If you need anything, I think we’re staying the night, and some of the rest of our party are staying the night too. We won’t hurt you.’

The boar-man looked between them both, and then nodded once. Eran didn’t risk saying that it was the King of the Unseelie with them, just in case that would be poorly received. He closed the door on the family and left them there, wondering if there were other fae like them in all of these hotels, hiding and stealing and trying to understand what to do with their lives now.

They spent so long exploring, that Eran thought Mosk would get bored, but instead he stared at all the paintings with open curiosity. He dragged his fingertips along delicately carved wooden frames. He pointed at a bright red and yellow rug in a room that had a bed made entirely of pale crystal, then looked at Eran in entreaty.

‘Do you want it?’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Do you want it? It would be nice in whatever room we pick for ourselves, wouldn’t it?’

Eran wanted to know what Mosk would choose for himself. He wanted to know what Mosk would decorate his room with. Eran would never forget how impoverished Mosk’s room had been on the Mantissa. To this day, he’d only seen Mosk pick out clothing for himself, but nothing for his room or where he was staying. Even now, he was picking things because he wanted to make Eran happy.

‘I like the blankets we already have,’ Eran said, bumping his shoulder. ‘Do you want to stay in this room?’

‘You can pick,’ Mosk said. ‘I don’t care where.’

‘Do you like any particular colours? We have every room to ourselves.’

‘I like whatever you like.’

Eran frowned, and squeezed Mosk’s wrist, and ended up back-tracking to a room that reminded Eran of the forest they’d first stayed near when they’d left the Mantissa. It had a painting in it of a forest reaching across to the horizon that stretched from floor to ceiling, and Mosk had stared at it for so long that Eran had eventually needed to nudge him away. Mosk stopped in front of it as Eran put their pack down by the bed.

‘Do you like it?’ Eran asked, coming back to him and standing by his side.

‘You’re talking,’ Mosk said, staring at the canopy of the trees in the painting. ‘You’re talking more. Is it okay? Is it okay for you to be doing that? You’re not making yourself tired?’

‘Maybe I’m just more awake today.’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, taking a huge breath. ‘Okay.’

It was hard not to kiss Mosk’s cheek, hard not to ruffle his hair, to do one of many things that might make him cringe or shrink back. Mosk was getting so much better about being touched, but Eran had to keep his touches firm and Mosk still flinched like he expected to be hurt.

‘I’m going back to carry that pack to wherever Augus wants to go, and let him know where we’re staying, okay? And then I’ll come back.’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, looking briefly at him, before staring at the painting again.

Eran walked out of the room and closed the door carefully, then made his way down the long corridor towards the main foyer and greeting lounge. As he walked, he felt uneasy, and remembered what he’d done the last time he’d been here. Summervale was where he’d pimped Mosk out for a room, where he’d been paralysed by that white-eyed fae who had frozen him in place to witness Mosk’s rape. Mosk said over and over again that he didn’t remember it, but Eran had to pause for a moment before joining the others where they were still talking in the foyer.

Summervale was so different now, it was almost easy not to think about those memories. It was hard to remember that version of himself.

Ash and Julvia found rooms to themselves side by side, and Augus walked further down the corridor – Eran taking the heavy pack slung over his shoulders – and looked into only three rooms before he made his choice.

Eran put down the pack by the bed, and hesitated. ‘Is it really helping, the blood that you’re taking from Gwyn?’

‘It is,’ Augus said. ‘It’s a pale facsimile of what eating humans does for me, but it’s nourishing. I don’t know how to explain it. Perhaps it’s how Gwyn feels when he eats normal food.’

‘What?’

‘Gwyn’s true appetite is damaged beyond repair,’ Augus said, sinking down onto the bed and stroking the quilt absently with his fingers. ‘So he cannot feed upon the deaths of fae as a true psychopomp would. As a result, he cannot sate his appetite properly, and is always – well, I suppose he’s always suffering for it. Perhaps this is a taste of what it’s like.’

‘Are you going to feed from Mosk?’

‘I’m going to ask him, possibly tomorrow or the next day. But I’m concerned for him. I think you are as well.’

‘Yes,’ Eran said. ‘You… You think of him as a tool to be brought under control, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Augus said. ‘But it’s more than that, now. I don’t think I realised on the Mantissa how he’d changed, and the person he was when we interrogated him in the Unseelie Court is very different to the person he is now. I didn’t think he’d ever heal enough to touch base with some of the original aspects of his personality, but I think he has.’

‘And that changes things?’

‘He was the kind of fae that you wanted to shelter from the harsher truths of life,’ Augus said.

‘But that was just an impression. He was already going through those harsher truths. His whole family made him the focal point of their guilt, their suffering, their bitterness. Even when you first met him, there was no one to shelter him from what he was living through. You’ve always loved Ash, right? Or near enough. And I’ve always loved my family. But Mosk… He thinks he had something like what I had with my family, but all of his stories are awful. They didn’t want him to have a life, because they were certain he was going to die.’

‘He doesn’t realise how damaging his family was to him?’

‘He has no idea,’ Eran said. ‘But I can’t talk to you more about this. I mean I could, I just…I should get back to him. He hasn’t been great lately. And he keeps trying not to bother me with it. What if he doesn’t say yes to you? About giving his blood?’

‘Then he says no,’ Augus said. ‘I’m not going to make him.’

‘Okay. That’s good. Well, do you need me to do anything else?’

‘No, fire trow. I’m perfectly fine, thank you.’

Eran hesitated over being called fire trow again, then finally decided he didn’t mind it and left. He found his way back to the corridor that he and Mosk were staying down.

He let himself into the room and stood still as he took note of the changes. The blankets patterned in colours of fire were already laid out on the bed. Eran’s eyeliner was there on the side of the bed he most liked to sleep on. And impossibly, on the desk by the painting, was one of those white euvara trees that Mosk had grown back on the Mantissa. Eran’s heart felt like it skipped a beat, his heart clenching.

Mosk wasn’t even in the room, but the bathroom door was open, and he heard water running. He peeked in and saw Mosk running his fingers under the water from the tap, and he could sense from where he stood that it was warm water.

‘Oh, that’s really good, Mosk,’ Eran said automatically. ‘Is it helping?’

Mosk looked over his shoulder with wide eyes, and then nodded. ‘It hurts though.’

‘Is it easier to bend them?’

Mosk tried bending his fingers, then nodded again.

‘So we have hot water plumbing after all?’ Eran said.

‘Uh huh.’ Mosk sounded flustered.

‘And I like that you laid out those blankets, and even grew one of those trees. It didn’t tire you out?’

Mosk shook his head, and Eran pressed his lips together. He was torn between finding ways to calm Mosk down, and teasing him further. Mosk like this was impossible to step away from. So Eran walked closer to him and checked the temperature of the water, then slowly turned the faucet until the water grew warmer. Mosk’s hands flinched, trembled, but he kept them in the sink, obedient even though Eran hadn’t given him an order.

‘I think you need some decent sleep tonight,’ Eran said, standing so close to him that their bodies were touching. ‘So I’m going to be tiring you out.’

‘You need to rest.’

‘I need you, Mosk.’

Mosk pressed his lips together, and then bowed his head over the sink. He didn’t say anything at all, but Eran could practically feel how much Mosk wanted to disagree with him.

‘Did you find the ropes in the pack, when you took out the blankets?’ Eran said.

Mosk nodded.

‘When you’re done in here, make sure you get them out and hand them to me, okay?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

Eran walked back into the main room, sitting on the blankets woven with their beads and fish scales. He looked at the euvara flowering in white, waiting for heat to turn the flowers red. It occurred to him that Mosk was learning the things that Eran liked, he did the eyeliner every day, he came to bed every evening. Did Eran know how to return the favour? Was occasionally having sex with Mosk or talking to him enough? Eran hadn’t even asked him if he’d been eating regularly.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyelids and tried not to think about Stertes, or what had happened the last time they’d come to Summervale. It wouldn’t be like that, this time. Mosk wanted what he had to offer, he even needed it, and Eran wasn’t a monster.

Still, he looked towards the open door of the bathroom, listened to the running water, and wondered if Mosk would even know if he really liked it or not, or if he only liked it because Eran did.

Eran sank back on the bed until he could look up at the ceiling. Eventually he called heat to his hands and placed them over his chest and thought of his euma doing the same. He reminded himself that he was doing well, that he was fine. As long as he wasn’t saying the words aloud, he could lie as freely as he wished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'A Little Flame:'
> 
> "‘What did you do to him?’ Eran exclaimed.
> 
> ‘This wasn’t me,’ Augus said, his voice harder than before. Mosk cringed away, even as Eran dropped onto the couch beside him. ‘This was you. What did you do to him last night?’
> 
> ‘Hardly anything,’ Eran said, incredulous. 
> 
> ‘He’s dehydrated for a start, and you’ve left him drop down too far with no net to catch him. Whatever happened, if you’re not careful, it will be a repeat of what happened last time. His aftercare is not nearly done, and feels like it’s barely started.’ 
> 
> ‘But…’ Eran hesitated, and then Mosk felt Eran’s warmth and moved into it without thinking. An arm wrapped around his shoulders and Mosk felt clingy and gross and pathetic, but he was so tired, and Augus wasn’t being mean to him and nothing made any sense. ‘I checked. I asked him if he thought it was a punishment.’"


	3. A Little Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's note:** Fairly extreme temperature play. Heat exhaustion. Subspace. Very dubious consent. Miscommunication leading inadvertently to bad BDSM etiquette (there’s still aftercare though). Subdrop. Blood drinking (Augus). 
> 
> *
> 
> What a week! I'm sitting here currently experiencing a rather exciting amount of mouth pain due to dental work that may or may not reveal the need for a root canal, but judging by the 'exciting amount of mouth pain,' anything might happen! Thanks so much for reading, folks, please enjoy this absolute beast of a chapter.

_Mosk_

*

For the first time in days, Mosk’s fingers felt like they’d returned to a normal temperature.

When they first started turning chilled and then hurting from the ice, he hadn’t paid attention, even though he had difficulty bending them. After Davix and Olphix were done with him, he’d experienced whole-body pain for months, he became accustomed to it. But Eran’s warm hands around his had taken away some of the stiffness, the water from the tap removed the rest.

He stared down at his hands, opening and closing them, nervous and worried about Eran, hoping he’d done a good enough job melting the ice in Summervale. He was sure he had. He was growing a knack for knowing how much energy and magic he needed to leech from the ice to weaken it. Just taking some of Davix’s magic from the surrounding ice destroyed it quickly. Mosk wondered if his heartsong gave the ice its semi-sentience, and Davix’s magic gave it drive and direction.

What would the world have looked like if Davix and Olphix had been more concerned with creating life, than destroying it? The combination of magic and heartsong seemed to be all it took to create something overwhelmingly alive and indestructible.

Those thoughts scared him, he looked over his shoulder into the bedroom. He was stalling, uncertain of what Eran had in store for him. Shouldn’t Eran be sleeping anyway? Mosk felt like he would unfairly take and take from Eran without even realising, he was a bottomless pit whenever Eran came close to him. Mosk wanted all Eran had to offer and more, even when he was terrified.

The bedroom beckoned, Mosk shut off the faucets and dried his hands on a fluffy, plush towel. Eran was already lying down, his eyes closed. Mosk felt like he should leave him alone. 

Mosk knelt by the side of the bed anyway, opening the pack. He was the one who had packed it in a hurry when he’d returned to the Mantissa, he knew where the ropes were. He drew them out. There were less here than in Eran’s collection back on the Mantissa. There hadn’t been room in the pack for everything, and Mosk cared more – in the moment – about the eyeliner, the little piece of shell the verkhwin had given him and Eran’s clothing.

At a loss, Mosk placed the ropes on the bed and then stood beside it.

‘You look like you could do with some sleep,’ Mosk said. ‘We’ve been travelling for a while.’

‘We’ll get some rest after,’ Eran said. ‘Come onto the bed.’

Mosk carefully crawled onto the mattress and knelt by Eran’s side. He wanted to touch Eran’s hair. The eyeliner was less crooked this morning, he thought it even looked a little like the way it looked when Eran used to do it on his own. Was he getting better? Or was it a fluke?

‘Touch me,’ Eran said. ‘However you want. But don’t hurt me.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Mosk said.

Eran nodded like he knew that, but surely if he knew, he wouldn’t have said not to hurt him? Mosk frowned, edged closer, and Eran’s eyes opened just a little and he looked at Mosk before closing them again and gesturing for Mosk to go ahead.

Mosk looked over at the bundles of rope. He didn’t know how to feel about being completely tied up, but he liked not having to think. It was rare he was given an order that involved this much action, this much movement. Hesitantly, he reached out and pressed his palm so lightly to the top of Eran’s hair that the black curls hardly moved. Eran didn’t say he was doing anything wrong, so Mosk kept his hand there for a little bit longer.

Eran was the hottest point in the room, the bed was warmer beneath him. Mosk liked the way it felt, especially after melting the ice. He reached out and pressed his fingertips to the tattoo on Eran’s forearm, then yanked his fingers back when Eran twitched.

‘Don’t stop,’ Eran said. ‘You can touch the tattoo. It led me to you.’

Mosk stared at it, then touched it again. The black ink was faded now, the edges ill-defined and muddy. Mosk remembered it being vivid in the beginning. He traced the lines and then carefully turned Eran’s forearm so he could see it properly.

‘How did the mage make it stick?’ he said.

‘I had to sacrifice things for it,’ Eran said. ‘At the time, I thought all those sacrifices would make it powerful enough to find the real culprits.’

‘What did you sacrifice?’

Eran was silent, and Mosk stroked the backs of his knuckles over the tattoo and marvelled at the fact that this probably felt nice for Eran. Of course it was gentle, but when Olphix and Davix had touched Mosk the same way, they’d always intended it to hurt.

‘Back then, my hair was shoulder length and he took it all,’ Eran said finally. ‘And then two of my fingernails and toenails, pulled out from the root. And a story. The last one, I thought the pangolicz just meant to _hear_ the story, but he took it from me, and it’s gone. I can’t even remember if it was a good story, but chances were…chances were I thought the magic would be better if I thought of a good story.’

Mosk looked down at the tattoo. The magic was nearly gone. He didn’t brush against it with his own magic, he didn’t want to risk accidentally hurting Eran. After a while he moved his fingers down until he could trace the lines on Eran’s palm. His skin was warm brown on the back of his hand, a little darker at the knuckles, and the underside was paler, except where the lines had carved his life into his palm.

He skipped Eran’s torso and went down to his ankles and feet. Eran’s ankles were slender, his legs grew black hairs that felt smooth when Mosk stroked them one way and rough when he moved his hand up towards Eran’s knee. Mosk didn’t grow body hair that was easy to feel, it was very fine and pale, he preferred Eran’s. He kept stroking until Eran laughed.

‘That’s ticklish,’ he said.

‘Sorry!’ Mosk yanked his hand back.

‘It’s not bad. I did say you could touch me however you wanted, Mosk. You’re not used to doing stuff like this, are you?’

Mosk wanted to say he’d never touched anyone before, but it wasn’t true. Of course he had to touch the people he’d met in taverns and bars and pubs. He touched them when he had his hands curled up or braced on their thighs while they fucked his mouth until his throat bled. But he’d never been allowed to touch like this.

When Mosk looked at Eran, those amber eyes stared at him.

‘You’re not hurting me,’ Eran said.

‘I like your leg hairs,’ Mosk said, feeling stupid, still running his hand over them, firmer than before so that it wasn’t as ticklish.

Eran only smiled and Mosk relaxed a little. He was tempted to keep exploring Eran’s legs, but he was still wearing pants, so Mosk could only explore so far. He hesitated before placing his hand on Eran’s belly. The skin was so warm there, like he had coals in him.

Mosk’s nerves never eased, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying exploring Eran’s body. Slipping his fingers beneath Eran’s shirt and touching muscles, feeling the way they curved and then formed valleys and divots like a landscape of their own. He liked the hair on Eran’s chest, the black trail that went down between Eran’s legs, though he shied away from touching his cock.

After a while, Eran pushed slowly upwards. Mosk paused, afraid he’d done the wrong thing, his hand gently resting by Eran’s side, but instead Eran just pulled off his shirt and dropped it on the bed, lying down again.

_Oh,_ Mosk thought.

He pressed his nose to Eran’s skin and breathed in, wondering if it was possible for body heat to have an odour. He pressed his mouth to the softer skin beneath a pectoral muscle and felt how even his lips were rougher than that tender skin.

‘Am I going too slow?’ Mosk said. ‘Is this okay?’

‘Yes,’ Eran said, sounding relaxed. ‘I like it. You’re being so careful.’

‘Is that okay?’

Eran opened his eyes and his forehead creased, and Mosk reached up and rubbed his fingers at the lines, trying to make them go away. When he realised how childish that was, his cheeks burned.

‘It’s strange,’ Eran said. ‘You’re so bold and forward in the day-to-day. You don’t get dizzy anymore, not like before. You often walk at the head of the party instead of at the very back. You don’t need me to hang onto the rope anymore.’

_I do,_ Mosk thought stubbornly.

‘But you’re not as confident as you seem, are you? And I know I haven’t been paying attention lately, and that’s not fair.’

‘You’ve been through a lot.’

‘Have I?’ Eran said, looking like he genuinely didn’t know.

_‘Yes.’_ Mosk’s fingers curled into Eran’s flank. Abruptly he remembered Eran on the Mantissa telling him that what he’d been through with Stertes was like a candle to Mosk’s blaze. At the time, it hadn’t made any sense. Mosk had ignored it, paying attention to the fact that Eran was unhappy with him and upset that he’d killed Stertes. ‘Of course you have. You’ve been through a lot since the beginning, and there’s only been _more_ since then.’

Eran was silent, and Mosk didn’t know what made his words so weak, why he was so hard to believe. He petted Eran uselessly. He didn’t know what else to say, his words weren’t effective.

‘Can I take off your pants?’ he said.

Eran hesitated, then nodded. He reached down to undo the fastening, then lifted his hips when Mosk helped pull them off.

Mosk decided he was tired of patting and touching, he wanted to do something properly, something that would make Eran happy.

He knelt between Eran’s legs, looking down at the dark skin of Eran’s cock, which firmed up slowly beneath Mosk’s gaze. Mosk’s fingers trailed up the inside of Eran’s thigh and then he played with the coarse, crinkly black pubic hair. It was thick and plush, the skin beneath it was tender. It was too easy to hurt someone like Eran. Over the months they’d known each other, Mosk knew he’d said so many horrible things to him. Maybe that was why Eran didn’t think of his pain as having value, as mattering. What if Mosk had made him think that way? 

‘Your mind is so busy,’ Eran said.

‘It’s not,’ Mosk said.

‘You don’t have to do anything at all, if you don’t want to.’

‘Shut up,’ Mosk snapped.

He didn’t like having so much control. He wanted ropes, and Eran pushing and pulling him into place, Eran telling him what to do. But he liked that he had a chance to possibly please Eran, he could distract him with something that might feel good.

Mosk bent down and took Eran’s cock into his mouth without teasing, only wrapping three fingers around him to make sure the angle was right. Eran made a choked sound in his throat, then immediately Mosk felt a hand rest in his hair, firm and warm on the back of his head.

That touch was enough to make him feel like Eran had more control. It helped.

The taste was stronger here, between Eran’s legs, a little salty, something darker and uniquely Eran’s, and then even that earthy strangeness of charcoal, though it was very faint. Mosk sucked until he could draw a decent amount of saliva into his mouth, then bent down and took Eran’s cock – still not at its full girth or length – all the way to the back of his throat.

He stayed there, taking a moment for himself, still able to breathe while Eran wasn’t fully erect. He breathed slowly through his nose and kept his other hand at Eran’s pelvis, twirling coils of curly hair around his fingers. He thought of all the things he’d been told. To suck, to go softer, to go harder, to take it all, to lean forward, to lean back, to keep the head of the cock on his tongue, to choke on it, to suffocate, and it was too many choices. So he waited and wished the hand on the back of his head would show him want to do.

All Eran did was massage gently at his scalp.

Mosk moved his fingers away from Eran’s cock so he could rest his hand on the bed and brace himself. He wasn’t hard, not yet, maybe not at all if this was all they did.

He reminded himself that Eran wanted him to do this. Eran asked him to fetch those ropes – maybe for no reason at all – but he wanted him to do this. And Mosk wanted to do what Eran asked. He wanted Eran to be happy with him.

He pulled back and licked over the head of Eran’s cock, careful with the foreskin. He then took Eran all the way down again and started bobbing his head, keeping his eyes closed, thinking that in some ways, this was less nerve-wracking than trying to get the eyeliner right every morning. He’d done this so many times. He didn’t think he was very good at it, but he could do it.

A flash of an image, the memory of kneeling at Augus’ feet in the Unseelie dungeon and reaching up while his eyes were bleeding, trying to undo the fastening on Augus’ pants, trying to distract him from his compulsions with this instead. Trying to forget about the underworlds that he’d never even visited. Augus hadn’t let him, even laughed at him like he was pathetic. Well, Mosk _was_ pathetic.

Eran was right, he was thinking too much.

He tried to focus, tried not to think about anything at all, and failed. But at least he could do this, he could make Eran feel good, could listen to the changes in Eran’s breathing, the soft groans, feel the way Eran’s fingers twitched.

When Eran’s fingers pulled Mosk’s hair until his scalp prickled, Mosk’s cock pulsed. But that was easy to ignore.

It was almost, in a strange way, like being back in a tavern. Except he wasn’t floating away or losing awareness. He felt the strain in his legs and knees. He felt the awkward position and the heat in his mouth. Every time he swallowed he became more aware of Eran’s flavour, his taste.

Eran never pushed him or made him move his head at a certain pace or rhythm. He never pressed down. He didn’t do any of the things Mosk desperately wanted, and Mosk whined and hoped Eran would mistake the sound for enjoyment. He was enjoying it. He was. He wanted Eran to be happy, and as long as he was achieving that, he was enjoying himself.

He was only half-hard when Eran came in his mouth, and he tried not to jerk backwards when he felt scalding hot semen in his throat, on the back of his tongue. And then he couldn’t help himself and had to pull back, dislodging Eran’s hand in his hair as he coughed. The taste was sharp and smoky and overwhelming, bitter too. A version of a taste that Mosk had known so many times, in so many ways.

He didn’t know why he was thinking about it so much. It hadn’t been an issue for such a long time.

‘Are you okay?’ Eran said.

Mosk nodded, his hand at his mouth. The fluid burned him. But it didn’t take long before it completely healed. He wondered what would happen if Eran ever came on his skin, if he’d see it blush red, if he’d get to see the reaction that he’d only felt.

He wanted to lie beside Eran and press against him, but he only let himself hunch down and rest his head on Eran’s thigh, wishing he knew how to do these things in a normal way. That was probably what Eran wanted. Normal things.

‘Do you want more?’ Mosk said.

‘I do.’

Mosk looked up, but Eran – still lying down – reached for a bundle of rope and began to unwind it.

‘Aren’t you too tired?’ Mosk said.

‘No. Why, are you tired?’

He was. Doing whatever he did to melt that ice, taking in Davix’s magic and never knowing where it was going or what it was doing, having to worry about Eran for what felt like every second of every day left him very tired. He didn’t sleep properly. He had weird dreams and bad dreams. He dreamed of his family dying in the fire, Eran’s family dying in the ice, the miskatin being raped by its family, Olphix losing his brother, the Raven Prince having his heart broken, Augus being stuck in the underworlds.

‘Mm, no,’ Mosk said.

‘I wonder how often you’d say anything at all if you were Seelie, and couldn’t lie,’ Eran said, sitting up easily. He placed his strong hands on Mosk’s shoulders and moved him easily. That alone made Mosk feel weak and pliant. He didn’t resist, ending up with his back to Eran, facing the room. He shivered when Eran took his arms and move them carefully behind his back.

Oh, Eran was going to tie him up. Maybe he wouldn’t have to think at all. He craved that so badly.

‘You don’t like it when I don’t have control,’ Eran said. ‘Was that hard for you?’

‘No,’ Mosk said, lying.

When the first bit of rope looped over his forearms where he was grasping himself in the grip Eran wanted him to use, his head dropped forwards. Ah, could it be true that it was already easier not to think? It was like the ropes were looping around all the excess thoughts in his head, squeezing them until they were harder to see, until they were quieter. Unthinking, he pushed his arms back into Eran’s hands.

Eran made a pleased sound, then briskly rubbed Mosk’s arm, and the touch – though quick and firm – was reassuring.

It took long, dreamy minutes for Eran to loop the rope enough times, for him to make his knots and slide his fingers along the grain of the rope and sometimes moving it just a centimetre or less, as though it had to sit in exactly the right spot. When he was done, Mosk couldn’t move his arms, even his hands were roped down where they curled around his forearms. Mosk felt strangely foggy, and when Eran pulled him back by the shoulders, Mosk only resisted for a second before falling back against Eran’s warm body.

‘You’re still a bit chilled,’ Eran murmured, placing his hands over Mosk’s chest. ‘Shall I warm you up?’

Mosk shrugged, the only movement he could manage with his arms. He felt like nothing really mattered. He was in the ropes, he didn’t have to care about anything, not even the ice. He was fairly sure that the blowjob had been good for Eran, but he felt guilty. What if he hadn’t given Eran enough? He’d barely touched Eran at all, and Eran hadn’t even liked the blowjob enough to guide him.

‘Mosk?’

Mosk pressed harder into Eran’s back, staring dimly towards the painting of the forest. Ever since he first saw it, he wondered if it was a painting of the Aur forest. The crown of every tree looked slightly different. The artist had gone to great lengths to not portray any tree the same way, until they all united together towards the end, so far in the horizon that all the colours and leaf shapes blurred together.

It was exactly what the Aur forest looked like when Mosk was standing on some of the tallest branches of the tallest trees. It was what the birds would have seen as they soared over it.

Was it the Aur forest?

And if it was, why did this hotel get to have it? Why wasn’t it his? That was his forest, and if his family was dead, and the other Aur dryads were dead, then why did this hotel get one of the last paintings of it?

Or were there many paintings?

‘Mosk?’

Mosk twitched, annoyed and startled. He frowned when Eran moved him so that he could make eye contact.

‘Mosk, are you okay?’

Mosk nodded.

‘Can you talk to me? You know this isn’t a punishment, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, blinking up at Eran. ‘Are you okay?’

Eran stared at him for a long time and then squeezed his eyes shut and looked away. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re picking up on me being stressed lately. Or maybe it’s that we haven’t done this in a while. I’ve been neglecting you.’

‘No,’ Mosk said. ‘You’ve been-’

A hand over his mouth, Mosk fell easily into silence.

‘I’ve been upset, I’ve been going through a lot and I’ve been neglecting you. They’re all true. That’s how life is sometimes. But you don’t have to erase one thing by saying the other when they’re all true. I don’t even know if I can do that much with you today, Mosk. I don’t think I can- I just can’t stop thinking about…everything. Like Stertes or the last time we were in Summervale.’

Eran looked at Mosk with that heavy, warm gaze. His expression softened and he reached up and gently pulled on Mosk’s hair, but it was playful rather than sensual or rough.

‘I can’t do as much today as I normally do,’ Eran said. ‘But I’ve missed you.’

_I’ve been right here._

Eran was the one who went away. Eran was the one who talked to Augus instead of Mosk. Mosk felt guilty for thinking that way, he tried to push the thoughts out of his mind.

‘Come on, you’re still a bit chilled.’

He moved his hand away from Mosk’s mouth, then pulled him back so that they touched, Mosk’s spine against Eran’s chest. Mosk rested in Eran’s lap, at the small of Mosk’s back Eran’s limp cock was sticky and soft in a bed of crinkly hair. Mosk felt unexpectedly tender towards that vulnerable part of him.

Two broad hands pressed over his chest, one over his heart, the other beneath it. When Eran started feeding heat into him, Mosk tensed and jerked, but couldn’t move away.

‘Eran.’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t like it,’ Mosk said.

‘I know. I’m not going to stop.’

Mosk’s eyes closed. Oh, that was better. That was better than all the questions and the apologies. He sagged into Eran and closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of that painting of the Aur forest. The heat flowing into him was disconcerting. He felt it pool under his skin before moving, perhaps following the flow of his blood or going where Eran wanted it to go.

It welled in his gut until Mosk took a huge breath and shuddered it out, feeling some deep chill leave his stomach and belly for the first time in what felt like weeks. Then the heat moved up towards his arms and flowed down to his fingertips. It felt like magic.

Was it magic?

Mosk wondered if Eran would ever draw those glyphs on him again. But he didn’t know if he wanted it to happen today. Eran seemed apologetic for not wanting to do as much as he normally did, but Mosk was already overwhelmed. The ropes on his arms had spun him into a place that he didn’t know how to get back from. He didn’t want to come back, anyway.

Mosk half-wished Eran would spin him so far outside himself that he didn’t have to come back. He wouldn’t have to be the one always walking up towards the ice like he knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t have to worry about what might go wrong, absorbing all of that magic and energy into himself. He wouldn’t have to see the others getting along and sharing stories, knowing he was too broken to hang out with them. He wouldn’t have to constantly be reminded of his family bonding while he watched from the outside, like a squirrel or some tiny thing, insignificant and with no real purpose, a tool to always be used by other people.

‘Mosk?’

He jerked, annoyed, and then realised Eran’s hands had stilled. Mosk was panting through the heat raised in his body, but he was finding it hard to focus.

‘Why did you stop?’ Mosk said, following the frustration instead of the distress. ‘Are you a coward?’

Eran’s hands tensed.

Mosk ground his teeth together. ‘Maybe Stertes made you forget how to be with me.’

The meanness of it took his breath away, so he wasn’t surprised to hear Eran’s little gasp. How he hated himself. He was trying to be good! He was trying so hard to be good! But being mean was so _easy._

Mosk curled over himself, squeezing his eyes shut.

_Just leave me then. Just leave me and go do something else. I know I’m weighing you down. I know I am._

‘That was cruel,’ Eran said finally, his voice lower than before. ‘I want you to apologise to me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mosk said, even though he almost didn’t out of spite. Even though he nearly swallowed the words down to make a point. He didn’t even know what the point would be.

‘Do you really think that I’m a coward?’ Eran asked.

‘I don’t want to think about _anything!’_ Mosk shouted. He struggled to get away and Eran’s arms tightened around him. Mosk arched his neck and bit into Eran’s fingers at his collarbones. Eran hissed and dug his fingernails in, Mosk whined and tried wiggling away and couldn’t get anywhere. ‘I don’t want to think and I can’t stop thinking! You keep making me think by saying my stupid name and trying to get me to concentrate, and I don’t want to. I don’t _want_ to!’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

Mosk twisted, using his legs as leverage to arch out of Eran’s grip. Eran grunted, moved quickly, folding his legs over Mosk’s and pinning them down again. Mosk gasped as the warmth that had been melting into him transformed into a sharp, uncomfortable heat instead. Both of Eran’s hands turned so hot that Mosk hissed and shook his head. Yet it gave him something to concentrate on and he needed that so badly.

‘Do you really think that I’m a coward?’ Eran said, his voice harder.

‘No,’ Mosk said, angry and spiteful but not knowing what else to say. ‘But you’re too gentle and you’re too nice! I don’t want _nice._ I _never_ wanted that.’

‘Okay,’ Eran said.

Mosk didn’t know what he meant. His voice was so firm and sure, Mosk thought it might just mean that Eran was going to ignore what he wanted entirely.

But the heat didn’t stop, and Mosk went from feeling warmer, to suddenly overheating in a way that made sweat break out over his whole body. His mouth dropped open. Eran’s hands pressed tightly into him and kept him pinned. Eran’s body was hotter than it was before.

‘Too much,’ Mosk muttered, whining when it didn’t stop. It made the bottom of his feet sweat, his palms slipped on his own forearms. Eran was forcing his body to respond, and Mosk felt suddenly weak, murmuring broken words under his breath as the heat dazed him. It reminded him of the forest burning, but it was also Eran, his scent and his hands and his heartbeat at Mosk’s back.

‘Good boy,’ Eran said, as Mosk went limp. He didn’t think he was being good at all, but it was hard to find energy to fight back. He needed to draw long breaths, it was the only cool thing in his life and it felt blissful. Each aching breath into his too-warm lungs, his too-warm mouth was the only balance to that heat. ‘It’s hard to be good for me at the moment, isn’t it? But I’ll help you, Mosk. I’m sorry I didn’t realise what you needed.’

‘It’s…too hot, Eran,’ Mosk breathed.

‘I know,’ he said. Mosk nodded dimly.

One arm stayed banded around his chest, the other dropped between his legs and rubbed over his skin, his cock, and then his thighs, his pelvis, his balls. Mosk tried to shift his legs, but Eran’s were locked over his, keeping him in place. He tried to move his arms, but the ropes were strong.

‘Fuck me,’ Mosk said absently.

‘I think this will be plenty for you today, my little flame,’ Eran said.

In amongst the heat, Mosk’s cock got hard quickly from only minor touches. Eran only occasionally wrapped his fingers around Mosk’s cock, sometimes he’d pull at his pubic hair, tiny little tugs that stung and made Mosk squirm even though he felt too hot to move. Sometimes Eran took up his balls in hands that were too hot, massaging the testes, moving them around until Mosk made a nauseated sound in the back of his throat and tried to push away. Eran grabbed his inner thighs with rough, lingering movements that felt possessive and rough and _good._

A soft moan and Mosk’s head tipped forward. He was dripping sweat. He didn’t like it. But everything else that was bothering him had burned away. He sucked down air like it was water.

‘M’too hot, Eran,’ Mosk gasped.

‘It won’t be for much longer,’ Eran said.

‘Eran, just…’

‘Another few minutes.’

Mosk keened softly, wincing as his head throbbed. But in that moment Eran took his cock up in a strong, tight grip. Eran moved his hand quickly, roughly, and Mosk wanted to shake his head but felt too sick to manage it. A roiling queasiness chased the arousal that had flared so sharply he was too overwhelmed to do anything except respond.

‘You’ll let me do anything I want when you’re like this, won’t you?’ Eran said.

There were no words left. Nothing except that red-white heat inside him, behind his eyes, in his ears, along his spine, pounding in his heart, throbbing in his head and his gut. His cock ached, Eran’s hand felt scalding, but it was clever too and Mosk was close. He was afraid too. He was barely aware of the room, the heat had affected him so quickly. He didn’t know how he’d stay conscious if he came. 

He whimpered, then couldn’t make himself stop. Eran built his arousal up relentlessly, until Mosk felt like he was hyperventilating, until even the air he drew into his mouth was no longer cold. He felt like the room shimmered with heat haze. It coiled up in his gut until his hips were jerking, until he wished Eran was inside of him, fucking him, but the heat felt like it was taking him as thoroughly as Eran ever could.

When he came, a fresh wave of sweat broke over him and he moaned, miserable and ruined by his own release. His skin prickled with coolness as the air touched his sweat, but it wasn’t enough. And even as Eran’s hand slowed down and moved away, Mosk continued to jerk through the aftermath, ripples of pleasure and pain and queasiness, weak and dizzy and empty of all thought.

Mosk’s body temperature began to drop and he moaned in relief as Eran guided him down to the bed. A hand moved gently over his hip, the outside of his arm, and then over his belly. Mosk was as wet as if he’d just come out of the shower. Normally he’d find it disgusting, but he was so far outside of himself it didn’t matter.

He liked the ropes.

‘I’m just going to get a towel,’ Eran said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Mosk couldn’t nod. His fingers felt rubbery, his head was swimming. A brief shiver, he didn’t understand how he could be so painfully hot and then so chilled. His breath shook in his lungs. His sweat was far too clammy.

Mosk heard the sound of a tap running, it was only a little louder than the roar in his head.

Then there were fingers on his arm again, and Eran was saying something unhappily, before briskly rubbing Mosk’s chest to get the sweat off. Eran wiped his neck, his stomach where he’d come all over himself, and then his thighs, his calves and even the undersides of his feet. And though the pressure of the towel was good, Mosk was getting colder.

Eran sat behind him and carefully undid the ropes. Mosk paid no attention. He liked the ropes, but he wasn’t feeling strongly attached to liking things or not liking things. He was uncomfortable, but it didn’t really matter.

Nothing really mattered.

‘You didn’t hold on to that heat at all,’ Eran said, rubbing away the sweat on Mosk’s back. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up and get you some water to replace all this fluid that you’ve lost, and I’ll warm you up again. Are you feeling okay?’

Mosk nodded, because he wasn’t really feeling anything at all and that was always okay, even if it was strange. The space didn’t feel soft, but that was okay too. His busy mind was quiet and he was distantly grateful for it.

The towel was in his hair now, scrunching up all the sweat in his scalp. Mosk shivered pleasantly. That was nice. He thought he’d like that anytime. It felt rough without being painful, it made his neck feel tingly and good.

Eran helped him sit up, helped him drink water. Mosk devoured the whole wooden cup and could have had more, but was too tired to say so. His fingers were getting colder and he couldn’t bend them properly. He didn’t think it was the ropes. His whole body felt stiff. His head ached.

‘Oh, Mosk,’ Eran said. That was all he said, and then he fetched more blankets from a cupboard – not the nice fire blankets, but ones that belonged to the hotel – and covered Mosk liberally. Eran crawled in behind him, and Mosk thought this was maybe the first time Eran had slept with his chest pressed against Mosk’s back since they’d disembarked from the Mantissa. It was the first time in too long since Eran had put an arm around his side, since Eran had pressed his mouth to the back of Mosk’s head, the first time in so long where Mosk felt jarred and lonely for no reason at all.

Because he was still sleeping by Eran’s side every night, but he liked it when it was like this.

Eran exuded heat, and slowly, Mosk began to soak it up. Not intrusive and hard like before, but gentle and sweet. Mosk’s fingers tingled, his headache didn’t leave, but it was bearable.

He was nearly asleep when Eran’s arm tightened around him.

‘I can’t believe you brought up Stertes,’ Eran said.

Mosk felt it like a stone dropping all the way through him. He felt it like a tree cracking in two from a lightning strike. His eyes opened into the dim room and he couldn’t think of anything to say. Guilt crept back into him, alongside self-recrimination, resentment, shame, the reminder that he couldn’t ever be good. He was never really good at all, and he’d tried to hurt Eran when Eran was trying to be nice to him.

He’d apologised for it and he couldn’t bring himself to apologise again. His mouth opened, but there was nothing to say. He’d brought up Stertes to hurt Eran, and Eran was hurt.

He lay there, headache returning, his body warm against Eran’s, listening to his shallow breaths as Eran fell asleep behind him. Abruptly, he wanted to disappear, or be on his own, but he was too selfish to leave.

*

In the morning, Eran woke and seemed fine. He seemed cheerful, he was smiling, his amber eyes were bright and watchful and not even spacing out as Mosk carefully did his eyeliner with a hand that was shaking far more than it usually did. And when he was done and putting the stick of black eyeliner away, Eran’s fingers rested on his wrist and Mosk stilled.

‘Are you okay after last night?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said. ‘It’s just…everything.’

It wasn’t, but he desperately didn’t want Eran to think he’d done something wrong. He didn’t want Eran to always feel like he had to make up for Mosk’s shortcomings. Mosk had said something cruel, Eran was hurt by it, and if Mosk was hurt by Eran bringing it up again, maybe he shouldn’t have been so mean in the first place.

‘You didn’t think it was a punishment?’ Eran said.

‘No,’ Mosk said, forcing a smile and realising it was almost easy, it was like how he’d smiled around his mamatree sometimes. ‘The heat thing was different. I don’t know if I liked it. My head hurt after.’

Eran looked at him for a long time, and then nodded. ‘I’ll make sure I have more water on hand if I ever do it again. Or do you not want me to do it again?’

‘You can,’ Mosk said.

Eran could do whatever he wanted. Eran could even punish him, because he’d be _right_ to.

After another few minutes he got up and got dressed, choosing from the limited amount of clothing he’d retrieved from the ship. A pair of long pants made of a dull green fish suede, and a pale green shirt made of cotton. Even sea fae liked things from the land sometimes.

He found himself standing before the painting of the Aur forest – it _had_ to be the Aur forest –feeling numb while staring at it.

‘I’m going to explore the hotel,’ Mosk said to the painting. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

‘You don’t want any company?’

‘Um. No, if that’s okay. We’ve been travelling together non-stop and I just need some time to…not be around anyone. It’s not bad.’

‘I know,’ Eran said. ‘You need time to yourself sometimes. Everyone does, but maybe you need it more than most?’

Maybe he did.

He walked out of the room and closed the door, then briefly wrapped his arms around himself, squeezing so tightly that his shoulders hurt and the skin around his ribs stung. And then he made his way back to the foyer. There, marble pillars propped up a painted, plastered ceiling. Mosk went behind the reception counter and rang a small bronze bell a couple of times just to hear it ding. He touched the keys that opened different doors. Mosk wondered if they were for fancier rooms, because the rooms downstairs were all unlocked.

Some of the keys were long and dark and black, some were small and shining and silver. One looked like it was made of gnarled bark that had accidentally grown into a key. Mosk unhooked it from its little hook and tucked it into his pocket.

When he turned around, Augus was standing there, watching him.

Mosk took an automatic step backwards, bumping into the wall, hooks and keys digging into his back through his shirt. Augus scared him.

‘I don’t care that you took a key,’ Augus said, his voice soft, maybe even careful.

‘I know that,’ Mosk said. Even though he didn’t know that at all. But he was always afraid of not replying to Augus, in case Augus used a compulsion to make him reply.

‘Where’s Eran?’

‘Back in our room,’ Mosk said, looking away. ‘I wanted to just…look around. I can go back to him. Or check on the ice, if you want?’

Augus was silent for a long time, and Mosk wondered why he’d even offered to do those things. He just wanted Augus to not be mad at him. That was all. Augus didn’t even have a nice glamour like his brother, he was just a powerful, scary waterhorse.

‘Actually, I was going to ask you a favour,’ Augus said. ‘You can of course say no, if you wish. But the Raven Prince’s necklace allows me to-’

‘I know what it does,’ Mosk said. ‘You want to try drinking my blood.’

‘I want to see if it can supplement what Gwyn offers me regularly. I don’t _need_ to do it, I think it might help.’

‘Fine,’ Mosk said.

Even though he’d been tempted to say no since finding out about it. Even though the idea of Augus getting anywhere near his blood filled him with visions of shining, razor sharp teeth and agony and death.

‘I don’t normally ask this,’ Augus said, ‘but are you sure?’

‘I said it’s fine,’ Mosk said, lifting his chin.

‘Very well. Come along then. I’m not doing this in the foyer, you can come back to our room.’

Mosk followed, wondering if he should tell Eran what he was doing. But no, it wasn’t like he was going anywhere strange, and even Eran had wanted him to do this. Eran was the one who said he’d talk to Mosk about it on Augus’ behalf. Except he never had, because Augus had told him not to.

Mosk stared at the heels of Augus’ boots and didn’t pay attention to his surroundings. When Augus opened the large, wooden door, Mosk followed without saying a word. He looked up when he realised Gwyn was sitting on the other side of the spacious room, reading one of the books that the Raven Prince had given him. Gwyn looked up and nodded an acknowledgement, then went straight back to reading. Augus drew Mosk over to another part of the room which felt more private. It was like a little lounge of its own, with a low wooden table and some upholstered, cosy looking chairs and a long couch. There were paintings here too, these were smaller and depicted lakes and rivers.

He wondered if that was why Augus had chosen the room, or maybe Gwyn chose it for him.

When Augus gestured for Mosk should sit down on the couch beside him, Mosk’s heart pounded, but he did it. He realised Gwyn couldn’t see them from here and it helped, but not much.

‘I don’t know if your blood is even suitable,’ Augus said in that soft, precise way he had of speaking. ‘If it is, and you allow it, I’ll drink more, but not enough to harm you. It will hurt, unfortunately. But you’re Court status and if you make sure you have some sap afterwards, you’ll heal quickly.’

Mosk thought he might even be able to heal himself. That would be good practice, because he hadn’t tried to heal anything or anyone since the Raven Prince had forced his magic open to heal Ash after half-killing him.

Augus seemed to be waiting for him to reply, so he nodded.

‘Now for the most salient question, would you prefer the knife, or my teeth?’

Mosk swallowed as Augus took his arm, the one not bound by rope. Mosk couldn’t relax his arm properly, so it was stiff, but Augus’ hands and fingers were gentle and Mosk realised he could move his arm away at any time if he really wanted to.

‘Um,’ Mosk said, which wasn’t very helpful at all.

He jerked when he felt fingers at his cheek, and he looked at Augus, blinking rapidly. Augus’ eyes were brighter than normal, like gems that had caught the light. It reminded him of the way the sun shone through leaves. Augus was grimacing, he didn’t look happy, and Mosk had already done something wrong and he wanted to be good.

Just let him be good, even if it was for an hour. Even if he couldn’t manage anything more than that.

Augus’ fingers tightened where they held his forearm, but it still wasn’t painful. ‘What’s wrong?’

_I don’t like you,_ Mosk thought. He wanted to look away, but those fingers at his cheek felt like they’d paralysed him. At least Augus wasn’t using compulsions.

‘You’re so scared of us,’ Augus said pensively. ‘I suppose you have cause. I’m not going to do anything else except take some of your blood. And if you don’t want me to do that, then I won’t even do that.’

‘I know.’

‘All right,’ Augus said, smirking a little. ‘So long as you know. Anyway, do you have a preference?’

He moved his fingers away from Mosk’s cheek and picked up a wicked little knife that looked like a letter opener from the other side of the couch.

Mosk shook his head.

‘Then I’ll use the knife. It’s a cleaner wound and will heal faster. My teeth aren’t made for drinking blood, only tearing, it can all be a rather messy affair I’m afraid.’

Augus reached for a folded towel on the ground and placed it on his lap, then pressed his thumb into the tender skin on the inside of Mosk’s wrist, then up along his wrist. Mosk almost jerked away, but Augus was being clinical about it, and Mosk knew he was the kind of person to not do this unless he really felt like he had to. Mosk knew Augus didn’t want much to do with him either.

‘Are you dehydrated?’ Augus said suddenly.

‘What? No. Why would I be dehydrated?’

‘I don’t know,’ Augus said, staring at him. ‘That’s why I asked you.’

Mosk said nothing at all. Maybe he was dehydrated, but he’d had water, and he could have some sap when he got back to his room. Augus looked like he wanted to ask something else, then shook his head like it didn’t matter. He marked a place on Mosk’s forearm with his thumb and raised the knife with his other hand. Mosk had to look away, taking a huge breath and trying not to think about the fact that Augus was about to _stab him._

This was stupid. He should never have agreed to this. It was stupid.

‘Mosk, you’re doing very well,’ Augus said quietly.

The words sliced into him, one by one, and Mosk’s eyes dropped shut. He was being good. Maybe only for a second, but Augus didn’t seem like the kind of person to say those words for no reason. Mosk needed them, he needed them more than he knew. He shuddered, and Augus’ fingers tightened around his forearm, and Mosk had to swallow down a small, fraught noise that lodged at the back of his throat.

‘It’s all right,’ Augus said, ‘and it won’t take too long. And then you can get some rest. You’ve already done so much for us.’

Had he? Aside from the ice, had he done anything at all except slow them down and make them worry about things? He’d killed Stertes and Gwyn had taken on the blame for that, and Mosk was pretty sure that would mean bad things for the Unseelie Court, maybe _forever._

His mind raced, he flinched when he felt the knife press against his wrist. It pushed down, and _in,_ and it hurt. Mosk pressed his lips together and stared down at the floor and tried not to think of Olphix and Davix, tried not to think of anything at all. The knife moved into him quickly, deftly, and it was no time at all before the cold, horrible metal was gone and a lukewarm mouth pressed to the welling blood instead.

It was impossible to hide his flinch, but after that initial wave of pain, everything else blurred together. It hurt, but it wasn’t worse than the knife wound, it wasn’t anything like what Olphix and Davix had done to him. And Augus was doing this for a reason and didn’t seem to want to hurt him just because he could.

In spite of himself, his breathing slowed, he sagged into the cushion behind him. In response, Augus’ thumb stroked twice over his forearm as though in reassurance.

So maybe Mosk was being good. Maybe it was possible. Even though he’d hurt Eran the night before.

But he somehow felt lonelier than ever. Augus was being nice to him because he wanted his blood. It had nothing to do with him and who he was as a person. He turned his face away, feeling heavy and upset and wishing he felt the fear again, because that was easier than this. He closed his eyes and felt like he had the night before when Eran had used all that heat to dash his thoughts to pieces, but instead of feeling nothing, he just felt terrible.

It was a minute or so before Augus stopped, drawing back and pressing his thumb down hard into the wound to staunch the bleeding.

‘Your blood is very suitable,’ Augus said, his voice lower, rougher than before. ‘Do you mind if I take more?’

‘No,’ Mosk murmured. He didn’t care.

‘Mosk?’

‘Whatever you want,’ Mosk said. ‘It doesn’t really hurt.’

‘It is, in a strange way, like revisiting my lake,’ Augus said. ‘It tastes so green and bright. Like forests and the earth all at once. I can’t quite explain it. The taste of your blood, the power inside it. What marvels you must be capable of.’

It hurt. He didn’t want Augus’ compliments, even though he was glad Augus wasn’t insulting him. But they didn’t feel good. He just nodded and waited, and eventually Augus bent down and started drinking more of his blood, lips pressing wetly to his skin, and Mosk let himself stop thinking. In the end, it was easy. Not quite like being at a tavern, but close enough. His mind went hollow, his breathing was caught in his throat and not deep in his chest, and he closed his eyes. The drawing sensation at his forearm was deep and rhythmic and after a while, the headache from before throbbed in the base of his skull.

He was aware of Augus stopping and knew he’d had to pull himself together so he could walk out and go back to Eran’s room. He was aware of Augus asking something and thought he should respond, then he felt another presence nearby and dragged his tired eyes open.

‘Can you get Eran for me, please?’ Augus was saying to Gwyn.

‘Is everything okay?’ Gwyn asked, his hard voice much softer than Mosk was used to.

‘I’m sure it will be.’ Augus’ thumb was chafing gently at Mosk’s forearm, but it didn’t feel bad, and it wasn’t too soft. ‘Get him to bring some water and some sap.’

‘Did you take too much?’

‘Mm, I don’t think it’s that simple.’

The sound of Gwyn walking away, the door opening and closing, and Mosk didn’t care. He briefly fantasised about a world where Augus could somehow take all of his magic and power by drinking it from him, and then Augus could be the one to deal with Olphix, the ice, Davix’s ghost. But then who would do Eran’s eyeliner in the morning?

Well, Eran would do it, and he’d do a better job anyway.

Mosk felt like he was crumpling into himself.

‘Ah, you poor thing,’ Augus said. ‘I don’t think he knows how to deal with this side of things yet. And I rather suspect you conceal it. Gwyn does the same, you know. You’ve come to the wrong place if you expected me not to notice.’

Mosk didn’t care. He didn’t _care._ And he didn’t know what Augus was talking about anyway.

‘Mosk,’ Augus said, leaning closer, ‘I’m very proud of you for letting me do that. I know you didn’t want to, but you did it anyway. That’s very generous.’

‘Stop it,’ Mosk mumbled, his voice breaking. It was worse than the knife. It really was.

‘We’ve been terrible to you. And you know it, but you think that’s just the way it is, don’t you? It’s all right, Mosk. You’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘…You don’t know,’ Mosk said. ‘You don’t know what I’ve done.’

‘Would Eran know?’

Mosk nodded, and Augus sighed.

‘I did wonder,’ Augus said.

Augus said nothing else, but didn’t move away, and Mosk kept his eyes closed and sank back into that miserable, nothingy space. When the door opened again, he hardly paid attention until he heard Eran’s voice.

‘What did you do to him?’ Eran exclaimed.

‘This wasn’t me,’ Augus said, his voice harder than before. Mosk cringed away, even as Eran dropped onto the couch beside him. ‘This was you. What did you do to him last night?’

‘Hardly anything,’ Eran said, incredulous.

‘He’s dehydrated for a start, and you’ve left him drop down too far with no net to catch him. Whatever happened, if you’re not careful, it will be a repeat of what happened last time. His aftercare is not nearly done, and feels like it’s barely started.’

‘But…’ Eran hesitated, and then Mosk felt Eran’s warmth and moved into it without thinking. An arm wrapped around his shoulders and Mosk felt clingy and gross and pathetic, but he was so tired, and Augus wasn’t being mean to him and nothing made any sense. ‘I checked. I asked him if he thought it was a punishment.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Mosk said, his voice thin.

‘I need you to tell me about it,’ Augus said.

‘Here?’ Eran said. ‘In front of him?’

‘He was there,’ Augus said, ‘and he’s distressed, Eran. No one makes smart decisions when they’re in this frame of mind. If I hadn’t found him this morning, there’s no telling what could have happened.’

_Oh, you’re upset because I’m a danger to the group._ It had nothing to do with him, as usual. He pushed his face into Eran’s shoulder as his eyes begin to well with tears.

‘I’m just going to put the sap and the water here,’ Gwyn said awkwardly, and then Mosk listened to his footsteps padding across the carpet back towards the other side of the room. Mosk wanted to join him, except he didn’t feel like he could move.

‘Tell me,’ Augus said. ‘I may be able to help, which would be better for him – and therefore for you – than this being dragged out over days or weeks until it comes to a head. He’s suffering now, and he will go on suffering needlessly until this is resolved.’

Eran pulled Mosk closer and started hesitantly describing the night before. Mosk only half-paid attention. Enough to hear that Eran wanted to help Mosk, when Mosk knew it was meant to be the other way around. Eran described the blowjob, the heat, the rope, the aftermath, the towel to wipe the sweat away, which Mosk liked. When Augus heard how much sweat Mosk had lost, he ordered Eran to stop talking and moved until Mosk felt a canister of sap pressed into his hands.

‘Drink it,’ Augus said.

Mosk responded numbly, his uncooperative fingers lost track of the lid, but Eran quickly caught it. 

‘He’s still responding to orders,’ Augus said. ‘I have literally no idea if he would have agreed to me drinking his blood if he was in a different state of mind. You’ve left him too far down, and you need to learn how to recognise it and the kinds of things to do and ask to bring him back.’

‘No,’ Mosk said, defending Eran.

‘Yes, Mosk,’ Augus said patiently, and Mosk felt a fleeting touch at his shoulder, there and gone. ‘I know this isn’t very fair to you, but unfortunately we aren’t in circumstances where we can watch this unfold over years. Tell me the rest, Eran. Drink the sap, Mosk.’

Mosk sipped at the sap, tiny amounts at first, because he realised he felt queasy as soon as he started drinking. This was oak, it felt like it had been a strong bulwark of a tree. Maybe the kind of tree that dominated the forest around it, the kind of tree that people danced around, tied garlands to. An oak with strong roots and many acorns. Small sips turned to gulping, and as Eran and Augus talked, Mosk reached out blindly to the cup of water once the sap was finished and nearly knocked it over.

‘Here,’ Eran said, ‘let me get it for you.’

Mosk finished it in seconds, gasping.

‘I didn’t realise,’ Eran said.

‘Fire fae don’t lose water in the same way,’ Augus said. ‘He has heat exhaustion, he very well may have been close to heat stroke. But I suspect it’s not the real issue, which is unfortunate as it’s the most easily rectified. Ask him why he’s upset, don’t just ask him if he thought it was a punishment or not. You can’t just assume that these moods are his natural disposition. You need to understand why he’s withdrawing and what’s motivating it. When that doesn’t work, use praise and watch how he reacts. Remember what I’ve said about this in the past.’

Mosk didn’t have the headspace to be annoyed that Augus was talking about him like this, he was confused, his forearm was still sore. He tucked it into his chest. He was still thirsty. He was so tired.

‘Mosk, why are you so upset this morning?’ Eran asked.

Mosk said nothing. He kept thinking back to how he’d brought up Stertes just to goad Eran, just like he used to bring up Eran’s dead family. Why was he upset? He’d done the wrong thing. He went and did what he always did, and he’d hurt someone he loved. Eran could say it was a mistake, but it wasn’t. Mosk had meant to hurt him, and then he’d hurt him. It was so stupid to regret it afterwards.

‘Mosk,’ Eran said after a couple of minutes, ‘you’re doing really well. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you are.’

He didn’t like that at all and shook his head automatically.

‘You’re so good for me,’ Eran said.

‘I’m not,’ Mosk said, his voice quavering. ‘I’m not.’

Eran’s arms tightened around him, and Mosk briefly tried to struggle away, not caring if Augus saw, but Eran didn’t let him go. Mosk’s breath caught, a knocking panic juddered through him.

‘I’m _not,’_ Mosk said, his voice hardening.

‘You are, of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be?’ Eran’s voice so perfect and warm and nice. Giving him all the things that Mosk could never give to Eran. A vine snapped inside of him, as sharp and painful as the stupid knife had been when it had slipped into his wrist.

‘I’m sorry about Stertes,’ Mosk said abruptly, his voice breaking. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought him up. I’m sorry. I _apologised_ , and you still talked about it at the end. I know I ruined it, I know I did. I’m sorry. I know I can’t be good for long, I know that more than anyone here knows that, but I just wanted to be good for the night, just for one night, just for an hour! And I’m sorry I wasn’t. I’m sorry, Eran. I’m-’

And then he couldn’t say anything else, because his throat was too tight, because he was going to cry, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to make it about himself. He’d ruined it. He was ruining the day after.

‘It was supposed to be for _you_ ,’ Mosk said, the words crushed together. And then he was crying silently anyway, his tears streaming into Eran’s shirt. Mosk hated that Eran was having to carry the burden of looking after him again, as always.

_As always._

Mosk struggled again, and Eran didn’t let him go. He kept struggling, annoyed that Eran was being nice to him, that spiteful outrage at himself flailing outwards until he sank his teeth into Eran’s neck. Eran hissed and then grunted as Mosk broke his skin. And then pain tore into the place where Mosk’s feeding teeth used to be because he’d bitten too hard and he gasped and let go, still struggling. He could tell that Eran was going to let him go, Eran couldn’t hold him forever, Mosk was Court status too. Mosk was going to _leave._ He was going to get rid of all the ice on his own. He didn’t deserve Eran saying nice things to him, he didn’t deserve-

_‘Calm down,’_ Augus said. Mosk went briefly limp, and then tensed all over. The compulsion hadn’t been as heavy or as weighty as they usually were, but it made it hard to find the thread of violence and panic he’d found before.

‘Hey,’ Eran said, curling protectively around Mosk. ‘Don’t use your compulsions on him!’

‘I’m not as patient as you are,’ Augus said, and then sighed. ‘I think I’ve been labouring over some misconceptions regarding our young Mosk.’

‘You all have,’ Eran said. ‘And I’ve tried to tell you, but you all never listen to me. Even you, with all your insight. And that’s helped us so much, it has, but none of you ever _see_ him. Ash might be the only one who understands some of it, and that’s only because he interrogated him. And has Ash bothered to speak to him since? Once? You enable him with all of this as much as he sinks into it. Mosk? Mosk, are you okay?’

‘ _Stop_ it,’ Mosk shouted. ‘Stop being _nice_ to me!’

‘I want to be.’

‘No! You’ve been hurt and upset and you’re tired, you’re so tired, I know you are, and you have to deal with me and _everything_ and it’s too much! Stop wanting to be nice to me!’

Eran’s arms tightened further around him, and Eran pushed his face close to Mosk’s.

‘I won’t stop, because I want to be nice to you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry I hurt you.’

_‘No!’_ Mosk shrieked. He tried to struggle again, but Eran had him folded so close that Mosk’s fingers were knotted up in his shirt. He felt the way his chest expanded on the kind of breath that would let him really fight, but all at once the momentum vanished, because he didn’t want Eran to let him go, because he was bad at trying to get Eran to do the right thing.

‘That’s it,’ Eran said. ‘That’s it, Mosk. I can be sorry for hurting you, and you can be sorry for hurting me, okay? It doesn’t mean either one of us is bad.’

Mosk’s shoulders heaved and he didn’t agree, but he couldn’t argue. He felt too weak and Eran was right there. Right there and warm and wonderful.

He didn’t realise Augus had gotten up and left, until Augus returned with a heavy, warm blanket and wrapped it around the both of them.

‘You’re doing fine, Eran,’ Augus said. ‘I know you probably feel like you’re not, but this is a complicated situation and you can’t be expected to understand what’s happening every second. We’ll help you. We’ll help you both, all right?’

‘But you have enough to be dealing with, and-’

‘Hush. Don’t go using an argument like the one Mosk has been using against you, fire trow. We _all_ have enough to be dealing with, which means now is not the time to be abandoning each other. Perhaps it’s not how the Unseelie typically do things, but I haven’t ever cared much for typicality. Spend some time in here until things settle, and I’m going to get some more water for Mosk. The next time you decide manipulating his body temperature to such a severe degree is a good idea, be ready for the consequences. Heat exhaustion is debilitating, exhausting and confusing. As someone who’s experienced it firsthand, it’s very unpleasant. Even if he liked it, it’s still hard on his body, and you have to remember that, because he won’t.’

‘Okay,’ Eran said. ‘Thank you.’

Augus went off and came back with more water. Eran asked if Mosk wanted some, and Mosk shook his head. He liked the blanket and Eran’s arms around him, and Augus was walking away to join Gwyn. They started talking in Welsh to one another and Mosk could understand every word. Instead of Augus talking about Mosk behind his back, he was asking Gwyn if he was all right, and what he was learning while reading his book, and then they were talking about the journey to Esgrettio.

Mosk’s breathing was hiccupped and still hectic, and he pressed closer to Eran and shook his head.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to stop myself.’

‘It’s like me when I’m angry sometimes,’ Eran said. ‘Knowing you don’t want to do it, isn’t the same as knowing how to stop when you’re in the middle of it. You’ll learn, Mosk. We both will. And until then, you have to let me be sorry as well. Please. But we can talk about it later, okay? You don’t have to do anything right now. You’ve been doing so much.’

And just like that, Mosk was dazed with tiredness. His eyes closed and his breaths shuddered in and out of his lungs, and Eran kept holding him tightly, making him feel better.

Maybe he had no right to feel better, but he needed to so badly. He pressed his face closer to Eran’s neck, the blood from biting him a wet smear across his cheek and ear. He fell asleep like that, listening to Augus and Gwyn talking in Welsh, no longer as afraid of the waterhorse as he once was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Esgrettio:'
> 
> *
> 
> '...Honestly, I don’t know how I’d turn out if I was raised by your family.’
> 
> ‘None of my family were like that,’ Mosk said quickly. ‘Why are you making it about them? I was bad even in that family and they all knew it.’
> 
> ‘Mosk…I- They didn’t treat you very well.’
> 
> ‘They treated me fine,’ Mosk said, confused, pulling away. Eran straightened and looked at him. His eyes were like candles in the night. Mosk imagined a whole town of people like that. Everyone’s eyes glowing and moving around like stars or fireflies in the night. Abruptly he wanted to see Eran’s homeland, and just as abruptly remembered it was gone all over again. His chest ached, he knew it was nothing compared to what Eran felt about it. 
> 
> ‘No, they didn’t.’
> 
> ‘They did, and you can’t blame how I am on them. I’ve always been poisonous. Even Mallem knew. If you’re trying to make excuses for me based on that, well, you’ve done stupider things, but not many. I was mean to you and you pointed it out to me, I didn’t handle it well. That’s not about my family and that’s not even about you. That’s just me being…you know…’"


	4. Esgrettio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: Self-harm (cutting) masked as something else. Mosk’s specialty.

_Mosk_

*

Mosk still felt strange and unstable three days after leaving Summervale. Mosk and Eran didn’t know these roads, which were fashioned from neat, pale tiles in greens and yellows. Forest gave way to wetland and bridges, and after a day of mostly climbing up hills instead of down them, the land dropped away to a vista that presented a flat land of hundreds of lakes shining like coins as far as the eye could see. There, in the centre, a palatial city, ringed by a wall.

The sun carved through heavy clouds and turned all the lakes to sharp, white mirrors. It caught shining materials on tall towers and set the city alight, it glowed in gold and green.

‘They use glass inset into most of their bricks,’ Gwyn said, as they all stood there. Mosk needed to shade his eyes. Not from the sun – that was setting and no longer shining directly into their eyes – but from the lakes and the city both. ‘It’s a magnificent city, but one I’d prefer to approach during the day.’

‘Why’s there no ice here?’ Ash said. ‘It’s been everywhere.’

‘Possibly the water deterred it,’ Gwyn said. ‘We know it didn’t want to cross the ocean, and while it could have encroached on Esgrettio, it likely had targets it preferred more. We’ll set up camp nearby. I don’t want to be on the road.’

‘In case you’re recognised?’ Augus said, a faint, mischievous smile on his face.

Gwyn’s expression was grim. Only yesterday they’d travelled past a merchant carriage stocked high with tiny pumpkins no bigger than apples, and the fae who drove on the horses turned to them all and stared for a long time as he passed.

It wasn’t until he was turning back that he said: ‘It’s the Dual-King! I swear it on my bones, Hilda!’

There’d been no one else on or in the carriage that Mosk could see – they’d never know who Hilda was – but what was more confounding still was that someone on the land was calling Gwyn by that name.

Mosk had only ever heard it on the sea, upon the Mantissa. Gwyn had told no one that Albion had given him the Seelie Crown. They’d all turned to look at Gwyn, who stood there with his hands on his hips for several minutes, looking down the road the merchant had come from, before looking up at the sky.

‘It’s entirely possible Albion’s gone and told everyone nearby, because he knew I wouldn’t,’ Gwyn said, turning to Augus. ‘He means this to stick, obviously.’

‘Yeah,’ Ash said, ‘because I mean, there’s literally no other reason for a land fae to be calling you that, given they’ve all been using Albion’s other favoured moniker all this time. Remember? It used to be Eran’s favourite.’

‘Oh, Traitor King,’ Julvia said, looking at Eran. ‘That wasn’t a very nice one.’

‘It’s still truer than Dual-King,’ Gwyn said under his breath, as he looked back down the road again like he was seriously considering changing their entire route.

‘But the Seelie Court is broken,’ Julvia said neatly, ‘which means that its magic around the crown is also presumably broken. Albion probably _could_ designate you King, even if you don’t know about the technicalities. Have you tried wearing the Seelie crown yet to see what it feels like?’

Gwyn didn’t respond, walking on like no conversation had taken place at all. Mosk hadn’t been able to hold back his smirk, sometimes it was nice knowing that the Unseelie King could be petty and rude.

‘At any rate,’ Gwyn said now, as they stood before the lake-marked plains and the city of Esgrettio, ‘we’ll set up the tents tonight. Ash, could you help please?’

They walked off the path together, and Eran edged closer to Mosk and squeezed the rope around his wrist. Mosk looked at him, concerned, but Eran only smiled. He was tired, but not as empty as before. Mosk didn’t know what had changed. Eran still had to deal with the memory of Stertes, he still had to deal with everything he’d lost, but every time Eran smiled at him like that, Mosk just wanted to fall into it. He wanted to trust that everything would be okay.

‘Look,’ Eran said, turning back to the view ahead of them. ‘That’s amazing, isn’t it?’

Mosk heard the awe in his voice, and followed his gaze and nodded.

‘Are there many waterhorses down there?’ Eran said to Augus.

‘No,’ Augus said. He’d been doing well enough that he hadn’t needed the walking stick since they’d left Summervale. ‘It is not only waterhorses that look after our waterways. Esgrettio lakes are mostly guarded by the alven ottermaaner, and the laecquetti. Fifteen years ago, it didn’t look quite this pretty.’

‘You healed it though,’ Julvia said, ‘after hurting it. Did they come back?’

‘They did, thankfully,’ Augus said, looking unblinking out over the landscape. ‘Some don’t, but when the laecquetti and ottermaaner realised the land and the water was truly healed, they came back. I believe aside from some small skirmishes over lakes here and there, ancestral lakes have largely gone back to the ottermaaner and the laecquetti.’

‘How did you do it?’ Mosk said. ‘Destroy the land like that? And with no magic?’

Augus looked over to Mosk, and Mosk swallowed, but he didn’t cringe away. The last three days had seen a change in their relationship. Mosk didn’t know how to explain it, but Augus behaved very differently since he’d seen Mosk pathetically fall apart in his room. Not only that, but Augus sometimes just came up and started talking to them. Both of them. Mosk included.

It was terrifying. But it was kind of nice, too.

‘I was taught,’ Augus said finally. ‘Truthfully, I don’t quite know how I did it, I was copying someone else. And I don’t care to reproduce it to show you.’

‘Okay,’ Mosk said. ‘I don’t think I want to know how to do it either.’

He did, actually, want to know how to do the things that Augus was reputed to have done to the land. But he wanted to know so that he could learn how to fix it. Still, just because Augus wasn’t being actively mean to him, didn’t mean Mosk wanted to push his luck around him.

As they walked over to the tents Gwyn and Ash had set up, Mosk stared down at the ground. He imagined flowers and plants growing beneath his feet with every step, blooming by his bare toes. He pressed his lips together at the ticklish sensation of flora doing just that. His mother used to flower-walk sometimes, but she was the only one in their corner of the Aur forest who could it.

When he turned back, he saw all of his footsteps marked by small pink and white flowers, and one sapling. Eran turned with him, his little gasp made Mosk both afraid and appreciative. He knew they were all scared of him and his powers. Even Gwyn, though Gwyn was the most pragmatic about it.

Julvia walked over and clasped her hands together. ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s lovely. Is it hard to do?’

‘No,’ Mosk said. He didn’t dislike her as much anymore, but he didn’t feel much towards her either. But this was the first time she’d come up to him just to ask him a question, which was nicer than all the other times she had nothing to do with him. It was tempting to share that his mother did it too, but maybe he’d save that up for Eran later that night.

Gwyn walked over and Mosk looked up to him, waiting for whatever his pronouncement might be.

‘Don’t do it all the time,’ Gwyn said. ‘I don’t want everyone knowing where-’ He looked at Mosk and then sighed. ‘I suppose everyone will know where we’re going by the ice melting, so it doesn’t much matter if you’re leaving literal footsteps behind us. Does it hurt the landscape?’

‘It’s everything that already grows here,’ Mosk said, pointing to other places where there were pink and white flowers, though nothing as dense and thriving as what grew under his feet. ‘But I don’t know… It might live a really long time. I can’t seem to keep that from happening, and the Raven Prince never taught me how to control it.’

‘You’re still working with the necklace?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said. Gwyn now knew it was a form of teaching, just as Mosk knew that the second book the Raven Prince had left Gwyn was also a form of teaching. The day Augus had wrapped Eran and Mosk in the blanket, they’d ended up having a long conversation together, all four of them. Mosk didn’t remember all of it, but he remembered that it wasn’t bad. Augus and Gwyn seemed like they’d folded both Eran and Mosk into the quiet times they shared with one another, like Mosk giving his blood had allowed that. ‘I can’t get the magical thread narrow enough yet. It’s really hard.’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but it is a relief to know there are some things that even you find difficult.’

‘It’s just really annoying,’ Mosk muttered.

Gwyn clapped him on the shoulder and went back to the small fire, and Eran followed, bending to take the lead of rope that trailed from Mosk’s wrist. He pulled it like a leash, and Mosk wasn’t even embarrassed. He grew more flowers with each step, hardly thinking about it, loving the feel of the ground shifting and moving and alive beneath the soles of his feet. Killing the ice made him melancholy, growing things felt good.

That evening, the others sat around the bonfire with its occasional yellow and red sparks. Eran put his hands in the fire and laughed with Julvia and Ash, Mosk walked off to look around. He stayed close, skulked in the shadows and watched everyone else in the light.

It was stupid, but he never felt like he belonged with them. Being close enough to hear Eran’s laughter felt good, so Mosk stayed within hearing distance.

He pulled the switchblade he’d furtively shoved into his other pocket. He’d done it the night after Augus had taken his blood. He’d meant to heal the knife wound Augus had given him, but he’d waited too long and it had closed up on its own. He couldn’t exactly hurt other people, and if he hurt himself, maybe he’d have more impetus to heal what he’d done so that no one realised and looked at him like he was weird.

Biting the side of his lip, he turned the blade in his hands. The hilt was pretty, patterned in fish scales probably carved from a dense, white coral.

Watching everyone else at the campsite, he cut discreetly into the side of his arm. It was harder than he thought. He didn’t just shove the blade in, because he didn’t want to make a very deep cut in case he couldn’t heal it and Eran saw. He knew Eran wouldn’t like it. The stinging pain reminded him of Olphix and Davix, his face screwed up and he pulled the knife back and could barely feel the blood welling. The cold air on the wound hurt.

He put the switchblade back in his pocket after wiping it on his pants, then turned his wrist to look at the wound. It was almost nothing at all. Embarrassingly shallow.

He placed his fingers to it and didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Just imagining it healing didn’t do anything. It wasn’t like growing things, which bent towards his intent even when his intent was half-hearted.

So he sought inside of himself for the tendril of magic he’d been trying to refine and imagined brushing it against the wound. He felt that, felt the minor heaviness in himself from awakening his magic – subtle enough that the others didn’t notice anymore – and still nothing happened.

He imagined the Raven Prince standing next to him with a knowing smile, and wondered if the biggest issue was that healing didn’t come to him naturally. It was something he could do, but it wasn’t something waiting there like a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked at eye level. The Raven Prince had to smash open all of his magic meridians just to find it.

‘I don’t want to do that, though,’ Mosk whispered to himself. No, he didn’t like how that felt.

He sat down on the wet ground, the seat of his pants immediately getting damp. The ground here was so water-filled, even though they were high above the lakes leading to Esgrettio. Ferns brushed his arms and his wrists. He breathed in the scent of fungi and damp goodness, the earth turning death into growth, chewing its way through everything that existed so that it might make it good again.

Closing his eyes, he saw within his body all of those lines of magic that formed together. Swirling circles of concentrated energy, and then rivers and threads and more spidering into each other and away from each other. What did healing feel like? How did he find it? He pressed his thumb to the stinging cut and looked inside of those spinning balls of light and tried to understand what he was seeing. It all looked the same. None of it felt different. To him, it was all magic.

Even Davix talked about how there were different schools of magic, and Mosk could do several kinds already. But it all felt the same. Invisibility, dreamwalking, growing, eavesdropping on others, it wasn’t like he was conscious of reaching towards different parts of himself to make those things happen.

As he lost himself in the light of his own magic, he lost awareness of his surroundings, the sting in his arm went away. He kept looking for something that felt like healing. He found things that felt dark and horrible. He found things that felt hungry and voracious. He felt his heart beating and his blood moving through his veins and the bark growing from his arms and shins, a constant pulling, and he felt the chlorophyll in his hair looking for sunlight and not finding it, because the sun had set.

‘Mosk?’

Mosk startled and looked up. Eran was standing over him. Mosk jerked his thumb away from the wound, and to his amazement saw that it had completely healed.

Had he healed it without realising? Or had his Court status healed it for him? He’d need to cut deeper next time to be sure.

‘What are you doing?’ Eran said.

‘Trying to figure out my magic,’ Mosk said, then sighed. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing. I wish I’d asked more questions back when I could talk to the Raven Prince. Is everything okay?’

‘I think so.’

Eran crouched down beside him, then sat down and made a disgusted noise as his pants got wet. Mosk nearly laughed. He didn’t mind the feeling, but he knew Eran hated it.

‘By all the fires, that’s terrible,’ Eran said. ‘I’m surprised the ground doesn’t squelch underfoot.’

‘It does sometimes.’

‘And despite my ass being wet, it’s still not as bad as being at sea. I kind of miss it, you know, and then I remember how it _felt_.’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said. ‘You don’t do any of the singing still. Not really. Will you ever do the fire things you used to do when we first met?’

‘Do you want me to?’

Mosk nodded, locking his hands together. He nodded again and Eran leaned into him, Mosk stared towards the firelight where the rest of the group were sitting and wondered why things were going so well when they’d been going so badly before.

‘Eran, can I ask… Did you just suddenly get better? About Stertes and everything else? Or is it pretend?’

Eran tensed and Mosk didn’t look at him, trying to give him whatever privacy he could.

‘It’s not…pretend, exactly,’ Eran said slowly. ‘I want to think about other things for a little while. And my mind is letting me. I don’t know how to explain it. For a while, my mind didn’t let me think about anything else. Now I can. Maybe it’s denial. I think I’ve learned on this journey that I’m pretty good at that. Is it upsetting you?’

‘No, no, it’s not that. I’m glad it’s not completely pretend.’

‘You’re really worried,’ Eran said, reaching out and smoothing his warm hand over Mosk’s knee. ‘Even after everything in Summervale. I didn’t treat you very well there and I didn’t even know.’

‘I think I was the one who started the whole ‘not treating you very well’ thing,’ Mosk said wryly. ‘I’m mean. You know I am.’

‘Mosk, it’s not that simple. And I was neglectful, and I don’t think the sorts of things we do, can be done successfully if I’m only half paying attention. Augus was right to point out all the things I missed, and the ways that I let you down. If he genuinely thought that everything was caused by you being mean, he would have said so, because that’s the kind of person he is.’

Eran was silent for a long time, and then pressed his forehead to Mosk’s shoulder. ‘There’s a difference, I think, with your meanness. You’re mean because nobody really paid any attention to you, but people pay attention when you’re mean. So you do it to get their attention. And I know that and most of the time, I don’t take it personally. Sometimes I do, because you want to hurt people when you’re like that. You’re like a kid who pokes a stick in someone’s eye, because yelling and yelling and yelling didn’t work.’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said.

_Why are you even here with me?_

‘I’m not saying it’s always okay,’ Eran said, ‘but I get it. I can see how much you don’t want to be like that, and how much it hurts you as well to be like that. Whenever you’re mean, it might feel good in the moment, but that’s a double-bladed sword and you always get cut. Honestly, I don’t know how I’d turn out if I was raised by your family.’

‘None of my family were like that,’ Mosk said quickly. ‘Why are you making it about them? I was bad even in that family and they all knew it.’

‘Mosk…I- They didn’t treat you very well.’

‘They treated me fine,’ Mosk said, confused, pulling away. Eran straightened and looked at him. His eyes were like candles in the night. Mosk imagined a whole town of people like that. Everyone’s eyes glowing and moving around like stars or fireflies in the night. Abruptly he wanted to see Eran’s homeland, and just as abruptly remembered it was gone all over again. His chest ached, he knew it was nothing compared to what Eran felt about it.

‘No, they didn’t.’

‘They did, and you can’t blame how I am on them. I’ve always been poisonous. Even Mallem knew. If you’re trying to make excuses for me based on that, well, you’ve done stupider things, but not many. I was mean to you and you pointed it out to me, I didn’t handle it well. That’s not about my family and that’s not even about you. That’s just me being…you know…’

Mosk laughed humourlessly and looked away from Eran’s eyes. There was a sharp intake of breath, like Eran was going to reply, and then the audible exhale as he chose not to say a word. Maybe he was agreeing. Mosk didn’t know why that hurt either.

He just wanted to make Eran happy, and instead he could get it so wrong. And sometimes he hurt Eran on purpose. How did someone stop that, once they knew? Shouldn’t knowing make it stop? Maybe he was too evil to know how to make it stop.

‘Hey, Mosk,’ Eran said.

‘What?’

‘Do you want to learn some ambari words?’

‘What?’ he turned in surprise, and Eran was smiling. His teeth were white, Mosk could see them. Even at night in the shadows, he was so handsome. It made Mosk’s heart thump harder in his chest and he hated it, because he never ever thought he’d feel like that about another person. Not ever. ‘Really, though?’

‘Yes. Do you mind? I’ve been thinking about my home lately and…I mean, only if you want to. Do you want to?’

‘Please,’ Mosk said, his palms landing flat on the mossy floor as he pushed closer. ‘I probably won’t remember. But can you?’

Eran reached out and grasped the rope around his wrist and squeezed it, and without thinking, Mosk offered his naked forearm, wanting to feel Eran’s fingers on his bare skin.

A pause, and Eran let go of the rope and curled his fingers around Mosk’s wrist, and then his grip tightened until it felt firm and then it felt almost painful, Mosk shivered.

‘Tell me what you want to know,’ Eran said.

‘Um, tell me… Whatever you want. Whatever you want me to know first.’

‘The word for fire, then: ātaxš. Even though you might not like me for choosing that first. Can you say it?’

Mosk repeated it after him, and Eran’s eyes widened.

‘Was it bad?’ Mosk said.

‘No! Just… Ah, do you have a knack for languages?’

‘Maybe. I always liked learning them at home. I knew more than most of my siblings, just because… I mean I didn’t have much else to do. So maybe I don’t have a knack.’

‘I’m going to kiss you,’ Eran said. ‘Bear with it.’

‘I don’t have to bear-’

Eran yanked him forwards and kissed him, first quickly and cheerfully, and then slowly, softly, and Mosk did have to bear with it. He hated knowing that those Mages had been his first kisses, and that they’d done it to rip his magic through his throat, licking it off his tongue. But there was Eran’s mouth, tasting of charred fruit and syrup and so much warmer, and Mosk’s fist clenched even as he leaned in and forced himself to know this too.

Maybe it was like learning a different language. He could do that, couldn’t he?

Eran pulled back and Mosk’s head dropped, his neck feeling limp.

‘Okay, now for the next word,’ Eran said, a heady smile in his voice.

Mosk nodded, spinning and dizzy inside at how happy Eran seemed. He would do anything to make Eran feel like this more. Anything at all. No one else’s happiness had ever mattered to him as much.

He licked the inside of his mouth and thought of Eran instead of Mages, and learned words with Eran late into the night, until only Gwyn was left by the dying fire, staring sombrely off towards the city of Esgrettio.

*

‘There’s hardly anyone around,’ Mosk said, as they walked upon a road that was wide enough and well-surfaced enough that it obviously was meant to have hundreds of people on it at once. Somehow it wasn’t brick or stone under their feet, but more of those pale green and yellow tiles. As the road widened, mosaic scenes ran through the middle dividing the left and the right. In some, fae with water lilies on their heads were handing torches to slender, lissom fae with long, pointed ears. In others, both groups were fighting off what looked like a huge pack of gigantic, white slavering dogs. All along, the two groups were always interacting. In one, two with long hair and feminine features embraced, and all the lakes were white mirrors behind them.

‘The laecquetti and the ottermaaner,’ Gwyn said, when he noticed the others all looking at the mosaics. ‘They’ve owned the lakelands for longer than any of us have been alive.’

‘So…they own the city?’ Mosk said, looking towards it now that it was looming taller than ever, its spindling towers towards reminding him of the Unseelie Court, but golder, greener, and sparkling.

‘Not exactly,’ Gwyn said. ‘The city is a good proportion of common fae and sidhe, some aelves as well. A decent proportion of ellyllon, though thankfully not the fie, so we don’t have anything to worry about.’

‘Aelves,’ Eran murmured. ‘We didn’t have many of those.’

‘I’d say Esgrettians aren’t using the road anymore because trade with Summervale and the Seelie Court obviously stopped,’ Ash said. ‘Surprised they didn’t post guards or something to warn locals if the ice came.’

‘They may have,’ Gwyn said. ‘We passed a couple of fae that could have been keeping watch for the ice.’

‘When?’ Ash said.

Gwyn talked about two ottermaaner he’d seen hiding in the woods that no one else had noticed – of _course_ – and Mosk caught Augus rolling his eyes so dramatically that he laughed in spite of himself. He covered his mouth as Augus looked over at him, but Augus only winked at him and said nothing when Gwyn asked what was going on.

‘Y’know,’ Ash said, ‘I’ve spent most of my life roaming the human world and there’s still so much shit I don’t know on this side. Aside from like, the ice and the war and the assassination attempts on my brother’s life and stuff, it’s pretty cool. You guys have made a pretty cool world.’

‘Thank you,’ Augus said primly, ‘we’ve done our very best.’

‘Oh, I know that’s not true,’ Julvia said, laughing. ‘Plenty of fae don’t try very hard at all. But some do. A lot of love has gone into Esgrettio. A lot of love of the land, the water.’

She looked at Augus, and Augus’ amused expression abruptly vanished, he looked away from all of them and focused on the city. Mosk supposed that was understandable, because he’d destroyed all of the lakes here, even if he fixed them again later.

‘Did many laecquetti and ottermaaner die?’ Mosk said, because he couldn’t quite help himself. He expected Augus to glare at him, but instead, Augus just looked weary.

‘Yes,’ Augus said. ‘Perhaps not many in the grand scheme of things, but enough.’

‘Do you want me to make you invisible?’ Mosk said. ‘I should be able to do it.’

Augus shook his head. But Gwyn was looking at Augus in consideration.

‘It’s up to you, of course,’ Gwyn said. ‘They’ve likely spotted us by now and identified the two of us from the parapet. If you turn invisible you’ll be safer, but they may also assume you’ve gone off to destroy the lakes again.’

‘Yes, that had occurred to me too. I am not terrible at diplomacy and time has passed, I’m tempted to see what happens if I don’t turn invisible.’

Mosk wasn’t sure that was a good idea, and Eran obviously wasn’t sure either, because he rested his hand on the hilt of his sabre.

By early afternoon they made it to the large wooden doors with their curling verdigris fixings. Gwyn stepped up and rapped boldly, and a rectangular section cut out of the middle of one of the doors slid open. Mosk could see how thick the door was, and heard sounds within the city which they couldn’t hear at all when they’d been approaching.

‘Dual-King,’ said the pair of eyes peering through the small revealed space. ‘Is it you?’

‘I am Gwyn ap Nudd, the Unseelie King, and we have been journeying to find a solution to the ice that has devastated the land and the people. As of this time, we have melted the ice in Summervale and at the Seelie Court – which has sadly fallen.’

‘You’ve melted the- No, shut _up,_ Melio! I’m asking him! I’m sorry, do you mean to say you’ve _melted_ \- Melio! No, Melio!’

The person was shoved aside and another pair of eyes – these distinctly cat-like – blinked at them all through the revealed space.

‘No one can melt the ice!’ said the cat-eyed fae, who must have been Melio. ‘We’ve had our best Mages on it. Everyone has.’

‘I can melt it,’ Mosk said calmly. The cat-eyed fae looked at Mosk and squinted, and then looked profoundly disbelieving.

‘Oh, sure, well if _you_ can-’

‘Are you going to give us passage or not?’ Gwyn said. ‘We’re here to spend a short amount of time and gather what information we can to better restore stability.’

‘You know, Albion came. Only for an hour. Wait, shit, fuck _off,_ El’eth! Let me speak to them! I’m better at it!’

‘If you let us in, you can _both_ speak to us.’ Gwyn said.

‘Oh, there’s a lot of fucking fae here who want to speak to you,’ said Melio, who then burst into bright peals of laughter.

‘I seem to recall the gate guards taking their job more seriously, once,’ Gwyn said sternly.

Mosk resisted the urge to blow the wood apart with his magic. He was sure he could grow the wood so that it ripped of its own hinges, and then he could yank it away from the city walls. His fingers twitched. If this went on for much longer he was going to show them that he was definitely someone strong enough to melt the ice.

‘Yeah, yeah that’s true,’ Melio said. ‘They did once. There’s been some, ah, rapid changes of employment.’

‘Get back, Melio!’ shouted the fae who must have been El-eth. ‘Let me open the doors! It’s the King, for fuck’s sake!’

‘Not _my_ King.’ Melio said, squinting down at them all.

‘You heard Albion!’ El’eth hissed.

‘Gods,’ Gwyn muttered under his breath.

‘Okay, okay, I’m doing it. I’m doing it!’ Melio said, then yelped as the doors began to draw back and must have pushed him back out of the way. ‘Rude, El-eth!’

‘I warned you,’ El-eth said.

The first thing Mosk noticed were the fire-blackened buildings in front of them, the crowd of fae that had gathered in the courtyard just beyond a broken fountain, standing and waiting. Some of them had water lilies on top of their heads – the flowers looked like they grew straight from their scalps – and were shorter than the others. They must have been the laecquetti. The others were mixed. Some had pointed ears, some didn’t. They all waited.

Mosk immediately noticed that while some had very nice clothing, others didn’t, and wore clothing that was barely a step up from rags. Some were barefoot in a way that didn’t seem suited to them.

Gwyn walked forwards, and the cat-eyed fae with long pointed ears, and the other fae with a pink water lily growing from his head practically jumped together side by side and spread their arms.

‘Welcome to Esgrettio! We are the temporary South Gate guards,’ said Melio. ‘I am an ambassador to the ottermaaner, and my friend El’eth is ambassador to the laecquetti. It’s all very new. As you can tell.’

‘Riots?’ Gwyn said, walking past them briskly and then pausing to consider the lay of the city before him. Mosk wondered what it was like, to just take charge like that in a place that probably hated him.

‘Yeah, I guess,’ El’eth said. ‘I mean, yes, riots, but it’s been rough since the ice came. It’s left Esgrettio alone, but it hasn’t left the trade routes alone. It hasn’t left the Unseelie alone. The ones that ate humans, we tried to drive them out, but some stayed and it got ugly.’

‘I see you brought _Augus Each Uisge_ with you!’ Melio shouted, and the crowd began murmuring to each other, but no one rushed forwards with weapons and Mosk decided that was a good thing. He was still ready to grow whatever he needed to protect them all. He stood nearly alongside Gwyn, fingers curled into half-fists.

‘Anyway,’ El’eth said, ‘since you haven’t destroyed the lakes _yet,_ and Albion came, we can give you a few minutes.’

‘I’ll need more than that. Were all the gate guards killed?’ Gwyn said.

‘We’re the third wave of gate guards,’ Melio said, ‘so, yes! El’eth and I have held the post on the South Gate for a little while now. But it’s a dangerous job. You know, we mostly just keep people out. No one really comes to the South Gate. Except for the King, apparently.’

‘You said you could melt the ice?’ El’eth said, tilting his head. ‘ _Melt_ the ice? Not just any ice? But the ice that no one has been able to melt for a year?’

‘I can do it,’ Mosk said. ‘If you don’t believe me, you can check for yourself.’

‘We have many Summervale refugees here,’ El’eth said soberly, abandoning the mischievous attitude of before. ‘It’s part of the problem. Not enough trade, not enough food, and then refugees from all the cities and villages and towns that became iced over. You want to stay here? Don’t expect to eat.’

‘I don’t,’ Gwyn said. ‘We can provide for ourselves, and if we have anything left over, we’ll share.’

‘…Oh,’ El’eth said, like he didn’t expect it. He looked at Melio, who raised his eyebrows. El’eth scratched at the giant water lily on his head. The petals crinkled and shifted, but none of them tore. Mosk wondered if El’eth could hear the whispers of water lilies. If he could interact with plants the way Mosk no longer could.

Mosk stared at the ground and felt suddenly very tired.

The rest kept talking, and slowly other people from the crowd approached. Gwyn and Ash didn’t let anyone get too close to Augus, both were on high alert. But Gwyn answered every question he was asked, and when two fae grasped his hand and asked if they could be made a higher status, Gwyn granted it immediately.

After that, Gwyn was stalled granting higher statuses to everyone who asked. To Mosk’s dull surprise, not everyone did. Even some of the poorer ones who looked like they might be underfae walked away instead of asking for a higher status.

A family of fae, all with their long pointed ears, came and offered Gwyn a small sack of pears, which Gwyn took with thanks. He rummaged around in their pack and brought out some of the dried fish they’d been given on the Mantissa and offered it back.

It was all in accordance with the old ways, Mosk realised. He didn’t know why it surprised him, but as he stood there, he realised Gwyn had a way of taking the old etiquette with him and adapting it no matter what his circumstances were. He made it look easy. Like he knew all along that he’d be coming to a burnt, gutted town flooded with refugees. He didn’t look bothered to be granting people higher statuses. And when some fae called him the Dual-King, he looked at them, and Mosk was sure he wanted to naysay them, but he never did.

Everyone was awarded the same respect, even as he guarded Augus.

‘You have a swan maiden,’ El’eth said hesitantly, looking past Gwyn’s broad shoulder. ‘Is… That’s not Gulvi the Assassin?’

‘I’m her older sister!’ Julvia said, smiling.

‘You’re not an assassin?’ El’eth said, walking forwards.

‘Goodness, no,’ Julvia said, grasping hands with El’eth in greeting. El’eth seemed fascinated by her large, white wings. ‘I’m a pacifist, like all of my family was.’

‘They were killed by Augus,’ El’eth said. He looked at Augus, and Mosk didn’t trust the expression on the fae’s face. He wondered if Gwyn felt it too, the moment when it was clear that El’eth’s friendliness didn’t extend in any way to Augus.

‘Yes,’ Julvia said. ‘I nearly was too. But he saved me. And now he is paying his life debt to me by protecting me on this journey. I hope you understand that I need that protection, for I’m still quite ill. So I want nothing to happen to him, you see.’

El’eth went to remove his hands from Julvia’s, but she kept a tight grip on them as her eyes were crinkled with her warm, beaming smile.

Augus stared at Julvia in amazement, but it was Melio who came up and smacked El’eth lightly on the back of the head. The petals made a crunching noise and El’eth flinched.

‘No murdering anyone until all of this is over, dumbass,’ Melio said. ‘We talked about it.’

‘Shut _up,_ Melio,’ El’eth said, as Julvia released his hands and he stepped backwards. He folded his hands into his pockets and looked sidelong at the King from under the large water lily. ‘He didn’t save _my_ family.’

‘No,’ Gwyn said, ‘and should Esgrettio need further reparations in the future, our Kingdom is open to that discussion. But not now. Melio is right. If you have vengeance you need to seek, it can wait.’

‘Fine,’ El’eth said. ‘Fine.’ He paused and leaned his neck back, staring up at the sky for a few moments and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘So, do you want to see the gutted remnants of our once great city?’

‘So there’s a tour?’ Ash said. ‘Neat.’

‘It’s not all gutted,’ Melio said, walking off ahead. ‘Some of it’s almost civilised. But yes, a lot of broken glass. Mind your feet!’

Mosk didn’t follow at the front of the group, but lagged behind with Eran by his side. He could sense Eran looking at him, but Mosk didn’t know what to say. It was stupid to be jealous of El’eth for his water lily, wasn’t it? Mosk had his too-bright hair and the bark on his arms and legs. But he didn’t have the golden eyes of a mature Aur dryad, he didn’t have the leaves or flowers from his chosen tree budding out from behind his ears.

The crowds of people got larger, in the distance Mosk sometimes heard faint bangs or deep growling noises that sounded more mechanical than alive. He didn’t notice himself walking closer to Eran, only the tightness around the rope on his wrist, Eran’s hand keeping him grounded.

‘They believe it,’ Eran said quietly. ‘They really believe it.’

Mosk looked at him. But Eran was staring ahead. At some point Gwyn had gone up to talk with people in far fancier clothing than what Melio and El’eth were wearing. Perhaps they were politicians or courtiers, Mosk didn’t know.

‘They really believe he’s the Dual-King,’ Eran said.

‘They’re desperate,’ Mosk said. ‘So can you blame them?’

Eran shook his head, and Mosk arched his neck and stared up at a tower and watched birds wheeling so high up he couldn’t tell what kind of birds they were.

*

The night passed uncomfortably. Groups of fae approached them. None were violent, but some stared at Augus like they were considering violence before leaving, some asked for food, some asked for status changes, and Gwyn listened to everyone. In the distance there were sounds of conflict, and Melio and El’eth never left them. Mosk could tell they weren’t exactly gate guards, since they hadn’t gone back to their post once. Instead, they felt more like bodyguards, or something more sinister, even if they seemed cheerful and helpful enough.

‘You’re going to have to address everyone tomorrow,’ Melio was saying. ‘Because, like, they expect it! Maybe it’ll bring some order to Esgrettio. It used to be civilised, you know.’

‘I remember,’ Gwyn said.

‘You used to come here sometimes,’ El’eth said, looking down at the cobblestones where he crouched. They were resting under a huge pergola, completely waterproofed by a bougainvillea that had grown so thickly it was – Mosk was sure – like its very own god. ‘And I remember once hearing a story of how you came to protect Esgrettio from Unseelie fae who threatened to seize the city.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Gwyn said.

‘I guess now that you’re Unseelie, you can take it from us if you want it,’ El’eth said. ‘Can’t you?’

‘If I wanted it,’ Gwyn said. ‘Unseelie fae live here already. Isn’t that enough?’

‘I dunno,’ El’eth said. ‘Is it?’

‘I think so.’

El’eth looked up at Gwyn for a long time, and then Melio bumped shoulders with him a few times. In the distance, another group approached, about twenty. Mosk wondered if they were going to get any sleep while they were here. Gwyn didn’t bother setting up camp or even finding them a place to stay in one of the buildings. He was focused on his job, and his job was to pay attention to the people.

Mosk hated it.

Long past midnight, two fae in gold and white robes came, walking side by side. They had very long, pointed ears, and dark, lustrous eyes. When they knelt, Mosk thought their black skin caught the light even better than most skin did.

‘You asked for us,’ one of them said in a soft, low voice.

‘If you’re members of the Cult of Taronis, then yes, I did.’

‘Yeah, who else would they be?’ said Melio sleepily. ‘Now you get to listen to them go on and on about their sky god.’

‘Melio! You’re so rude. I’m sorry,’ El’eth said to the robed fae. ‘He’s always like this.’

‘We know,’ the other one said, and she smiled, pulling her hood back from her frizzy, dense hair. ‘We love Taronis, but calling him sky god is somewhat tongue in cheek. He adores it, and we adore him, and so we say it. I am an adept, my name is Tamyka, and this is my acolyte, Venorio.’

‘A pleasure to meet you both, thank you for coming. Is he at the School of the Staff?’ Gwyn said.

‘Yes,’ said Tamyka. ‘He’s come here only briefly since the ice. You have the light too, don’t you? Do you come to share it with him?’

‘It was taken from me,’ Gwyn said. ‘So I go to consult with him about how to get it back.’

‘Taronis will know,’ Venorio said, crouching beside them all.

Tamyka was silent and pensive for a long time. Finally, she tilted her head at Gwyn. ‘There are records we had before the library was burned, of Unseelie fae with blessings of light. Almost all of them died releasing it as babes or children, like stars eaten up by their own glow. And Taronis is Seelie, and has not lived with an Unseelie light, so Taronis may not know. But if anyone does, it will be him.’

‘If you know of any ways to increase favour with him, I’d be grateful to you and to the Cult of Taronis.’

Tamyka was silent for a long time, and finally she sat down and crossed her long legs. ‘They say you are going to do a speech tomorrow. To all of us. Are you?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘They need it. Taronis stays above these things, but our beautiful City of light has become so wounded. We are supposed to stay above these things, and we did try, but they burned our tower, and they stole our golden tiles to pay for food, and then finally the tiles we hoarded to protect what we had left we sold so that we might pay for food until finally we had nothing left. And then there was almost no food, and no golden tiles, and we have felt as though we’ve been waiting for the ice ever since. And they say that you can melt it.’

‘Mosk Manytrees can melt it,’ Gwyn said. Mosk blinked, startled, as Gwyn indicated him. ‘He is under my direct care.’

‘Will you melt the ice everywhere? Will you get rid of it?’ Tamyka said.

Mosk thought of Davix locked in the ice and hesitated. He’d never intended to get rid of the ice completely, not until he could figure out what to do about Davix. He needed to dreamwalk and check on him, he needed to understand what absorbing the energies in the ice was doing to the both of them. The weight of everything he had to deal with grew in his mind until finally he nodded, aware he was so often lying.

‘Is it true that it covered the whole Seelie Court?’ Tamyka said, her voice even softer, so that Mosk had to strain to hear her. ‘It can’t have fallen. Now that the ice is melted it will come back and be what it was. It must…’

She trailed off and sighed.

‘Albion came and told us it was fallen. I hear it though. My own denial. My own fear to acknowledge what is true. Taronis would find it shameful, my sky god, he would be disappointed in me.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gwyn said. ‘But there is no good heart that wishes to see the Courts fall, and it is a horror beyond horrors to see it.’

‘Albion came to the northeast square, which is the largest,’ Tamyka said. ‘He gathered us all. He announced that he had through grave error let the Court fall, and that it was the gravest crime of any to have ever existed. And then he said that the only fae left alive who could possibly repair the damage was one he had maligned unfairly. And he said you were known by ill-omened names like the Traitor King, the Great Betrayer and the Fallen Star, and then he said in truth, you were simply Gwyn ap Nudd, raised by the Seelie to uphold Seelie values, who had vanquished the Each Uisge and then tamed him, and caught and trapped the Nightingale. He said that we were to listen to you, heed you, and see for ourselves that a flawed King who is trying, is better than an arrogant King who is not.’

Everyone around them, including the group that had crept up behind the two Cult of Taronis members, were silent.

‘Is the northeast square far from here?’ Gwyn said.

‘No, Your Majesty, it is not.’

Mosk couldn’t help but notice it was the first time anyone had used that title with Gwyn for a while. It was offered sincerely, and it changed the atmosphere of the entire meeting.

‘I would like you to gather as many fae as you can there tomorrow morning. For I will also have an announcement to make, and I need at least more than thirty people to hear it.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty. Was there anything else you wanted to know about Taronis?’

‘A way to increase favour with him,’ Gwyn said.

‘Gold,’ Tamyka said. ‘Whatever gold you have. And respect him, always. The deepest, oldest etiquette, always. He deserves no less.’

‘Gramercie.’

Tamyka and Venorio both bowed, and then they stood and walked away, and the group behind them stayed there silently for so long that Gwyn sighed.

‘Are you here for food or to talk to me about status?’

‘Y-yes?’ A small voice in the dark, attached to a small person who turned out to be a very short laecquetti. ‘Your Majesty, please?’

Gwyn pushed up from his seated position and walked over to the group of laecquetti. Mosk knew he was exhausted. He knew they were nearly completely out of food. He knew Gwyn didn’t want what the world had thrust upon him, and yet he walked forwards anyway and didn’t complain. Mosk had always respected and liked the Unseelie King, but in that moment he loved his King, and he was proud to be Unseelie.

*

Mosk did Eran’s eyeliner at dawn, carefully drawing the lines and needing Eran’s help, because it was too dark to see properly. The buildings around them cast deep shadows and he didn’t have the same kind of night vision that some of the others did. He was an Aur dryad, he didn’t need night vision to eat the sap of trees, and like many plants and the dryads who loved them, he was made to sleep when it was dark.

‘I used to really not like underfae,’ Eran said quietly, after another small group came and went. ‘We were all a higher status than that in my homeland, and it always seemed like underfae were just waiting to steal food or homes or land or whatever.’

‘They are,’ Augus said. ‘Because almost always, they cannot defend their homes, or must fight to the death to keep them. Because a Court fae can take their crops and their food and their game and an underfae can’t match them in power or longevity. It is a system that made it almost guaranteed that they would fail, die early, live impoverished lives, not even be able to survive the pilgrimage to a monarch to change their status. And it is a system that we benefit from, while looking down on them for it.’

‘Yeah,’ Eran said. ‘I mean, you’re right. I’ve been seeing that a bit more lately.’

‘I’ve spent most of my life as underfae,’ Augus said, stretching his arms and yawning. ‘Ash, too, was underfae for even longer than I was. We could sicken from spoiled food. Winter could and nearly did kill us. Were we underfae now, we’d already be dead. Long dead.’

Gwyn turned back from where he stood apart from the group and looked at Augus for some time, and then turned back towards the road where all the people seemed to be approaching. But in the twilight that turned Esgrettio to beauty and muted the burn marks on some of the buildings, no one else came. Instead, the low thrum of voices in the distance. The gathered people there to hear Gwyn’s address.

Mosk was going to go, and he was going to find a way to help. 

‘Anyway,’ Ash said. ‘Fuck Olphix and Davix for doing that to everyone. In the long list of things to hate those fuckers for. What absolute motherfuckers.’

After a few minutes, itchy with anticipation for what might be coming, Mosk grasped the pendant of his necklace.

‘I’m going to sit over there for a bit,’ he said, pointing to a shadowed part of the pergola that was crowded with thick, overgrown hedges on almost every side. ‘I want to work with the necklace more.’

‘Okay,’ Eran said, squeezing Mosk’s bare wrist, instead of the one covered in rope. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

Mosk scowled at him, not sure if he wanted to be thanked for something like that, but he got up and walked over to the hedges – none of them trimmed in months it looked like – and sat cross-legged and grabbed the necklace with his hand, and then took it off from around his neck.

He kept it in his hand, then furtively took the switchblade out of his pocket. The others had started talking amongst themselves, and Mosk figured they were talking about underfae or the fae classes or something, and he watched them while he dug the knife into the side of his wrist. He flinched a little, but it was easier if he did it faster rather than slower. The pain was bright and less stinging. And when he moved the knife away, the blood welled in larger amounts than it did before.

Immediately, he reached for a thread of his magic and brushed it against the wound and nothing happened.

‘Damn it,’ he muttered. ‘It’s _mine,_ so why can’t I?’

He pressed his thumb to the wound and tried to remember what he did before. It would be useless, maybe, but he reached inside of himself like last time and abandoned the single thread. Where had he gone? Into the spinning wells of magic inside of himself. With each exhale, he imagined somehow finding his healing magic, even though he didn’t know what it felt like. He found that hungry part of him again, hot and tingling, alive and fervent. It felt so large that focusing in that direction made him feel like it might burst out of him at any moment.

As he watched it, he felt the light of it explode towards him, and he gasped and yanked backwards out of the light trance state and blinked back to awareness. He had no idea how much time had passed, but no one was looking at him oddly.

When he moved his thumb away, the wound was healed. This time, he knew he _had_ healed it. No way would a cut like that close so quickly otherwise, and definitely not completely. The skin was seamless.

He needed to figure out a way to do it that allowed him to stay aware. He still didn’t know exactly what he’d done or why it had worked.

‘What the fuck?’ he whispered.

How could he heal when it didn’t even feel like healing? He dug his fingers into the pale green crystal the Raven Prince had given him and stared ahead. At least he could do it. At least he had a starting point. And that meant he could melt the ice _and_ heal Eran, and anyone else who needed it.

It was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter: 'The Dryad and the King:'
> 
> Within seconds, a hand around his neck and one in his hair, and he was slammed hard enough into the wall that he winced.
> 
> _‘What_ were you thinking?’ Gwyn hissed at him. 
> 
> ‘It was good, right?’ Mosk said, staring at him, still feeling heady from his own magic and Gwyn’s glamour and how right it had felt. ‘It was good? You saw them, didn’t you?’ 
> 
> Gwyn stared at him, and by the light streaming in through the windows, there was a dangerous gleam in his azure blue eyes. Mosk grinned at him, even as he wheezed for breath. 
> 
> ‘Tell me that wasn’t amazing,’ Mosk said.


	5. The Dryad and the King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO, we're back! Around this point when I was writing these chapters, I remember this was the chapter where I was like 'holy shit how is it only chapter 5, and we already have all these power moves happening' and I was kind of floored when I realised how much more there was to come. This was one of those like... idk... and maybe it's just me!! And maybe I was the only one who felt it, but I had a moment, with this chapter, lol, and I hope you get something out of it too. <3

_Mosk_

*

Mosk was cloaked with invisibility as he followed the Unseelie King and the two members of the Cult of Taronis who were leading Gwyn to the northeast square. Mosk, after claiming he was going a short distance away to work on the magic in the pendant, instead vanished and watched as Gwyn pulled out his black, forbidding medieval plate armour from his pack along with a gambeson. For the first time since they started this journey, he put on his armour.

The greatsword he had came from the Mantissa, a gift from Ondine. The Raven Prince had destroyed Gwyn’s other sword in a fit of pique. Mosk had seen it dissolve to dust himself. Gwyn’s new sword had a pale bluish-green blade and the hilt was white, like the hilt of Mosk’s switchblade. Once sheathed, it stood out in shocking contrast to Gwyn’s black armour.

Gwyn had a smaller satchel with him, slung over his shoulder. He didn’t wear a helm of any kind, exposing his golden hair to the sun, making it look like spun gold. Mosk didn’t think he was beautiful, he was too muscular to be beautiful, but he was striking. Just by putting on his plate armour, he looked like an avenging god come to life. Mosk wondered if it was his glamour too, but it was hard to tell Gwyn’s glamour unless it was spiking. And then he knew it very well by the dread and terror in his heart.

They walked down an alleyway, turned a corner, and Mosk stopped and stared, for he had never seen so many fae gathered in his entire life on the land. His mind couldn’t make sense of the numbers. Three thousand? Five thousand? The northeast square was large, and towards the front of the crowd – near where they were standing – was a dais tiled in green and gold, pillars inset with glass and catching the light already. At least sixteen broken fountains ringed the space, and many of the sculptures of elegant fae had been shattered or were missing arms or legs or heads.

The buildings that ringed the space might have been prosperous once, but now their wooden blinds were burnt, glass was broken, and there were places where valuable tiles had been levered directly out of the walls.

Despite the wreckage, Mosk could imagine markets happening here, performers on the dais maybe, bands and bards making music and stories for those who visited. He’d not really seen many of those things in his life, but he’d seen it at the Unseelie Court the few times he’d visited.

His mind couldn’t comprehend the crowd, but Gwyn didn’t seem scared at all. Even his shoulders were relaxed. He had the alertness he always had, but he was like a wild animal that didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. Mosk’s invisibility was so complete that he knew Gwyn didn’t know he was there.

‘Shall we announce you?’ said Tamyka.

‘In a moment,’ Gwyn said.

He opened the satchel and pulled out the Unseelie crown and held it between his hands while the other two stared at him. And then he pulled out the Seelie crown and held them both side by side. They were identical in shape, Mosk realised. The only difference was the colour of the metal. One was a silvery gold, the other was a silvery grey-white. They both looked like they’d been delicately constructed from thin twigs and budding leaves and flowers, and then turned into gilt.

‘He really did give you the crown,’ Tamyka said.

‘He really did.’

‘Are you going to wear them?’

‘I cannot wear them both,’ Gwyn said. ‘And, in truth, I have never liked to wear either. They are heavier than they look.’

The other two nodded like it made sense, but Mosk could tell they didn’t really understand. After a moment, Gwyn put the Seelie crown back and closed the satchel. Mosk had never known that Gwyn had been travelling with the Unseelie crown all this time. Had he expected that he might need it? Or had someone else told him to bring it?

Gwyn placed the crown on his head, and then looked behind him. Mosk felt a bolt of terror, because Gwyn was staring right at him, but no, Gwyn was staring _through_ him, down the path they’d taken. He was probably thinking of Augus, or maybe the group.

When Gwyn turned back, he took a breath, and Mosk blinked at the sharp escalation of glamour in the air. He’d experienced this dra’ocht before, at the Masque many years ago. An intentional cloak of energy that felt rousing and bold and strong. It made him want to do his very best, it made him want to help the King and his Kingdom. All at once, he felt like he was breathing in a greater capacity for strength, for bravery. It made him feel dazed.

The others appeared to feel it, for Venorio took a step back, staring at Gwyn in awe.

Gwyn took a slow, deep breath, then walked decisively towards the dais.

Mosk followed quickly, keeping as close to him as he dared as the fringe of the crowd parted to let Gwyn through. And Mosk saw the way they stared at him. Some looked afraid, some looked impressed, some hopeful. He heard the sureness of Gwyn’s footsteps on the tiles, and he was dazzled by the way the light of the city hit the silvery metal of the Unseelie crown and made it seem like the golden hair on his head was glowing.

Some people called him the Dual-King, some people called him the Traitor King, but no one said it loudly. They all spoke under their breath, as though to get Gwyn’s attention would be a frightening thing.

And then Gwyn was on the dais and Mosk was there too, heart throbbing in his throat, staring frantically at everyone, wondering if anyone could see him. At the last moment he crouched and hid behind one of the pillars, a few feet away from Gwyn, breathing heavily. No one could hear him, his invisibility was complete, but it was too much pressure, too much attention. He could feel the energy of all of those individual fae, Gwyn’s glamour on top of it, and it all pressed relentlessly into him until he had no room for his own thoughts.

He was here to help. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he was determined to help. At best, he could protect Gwyn. He could grow things and shield him. Gwyn didn’t need that, but Mosk would offer it anyway. None of the others could do what he could do.

Gwyn stepped forwards until he was at the edge of the stage, and the crowd went silent almost at once. Like Gwyn had commanded it of them.

Gwyn took a breath, and when he spoke, Mosk knew everyone would hear him.

‘My party and I would like to thank you all for your hospitality in the glorious city of Esgrettio. Many years have passed since I’ve last been here and hard times have fallen upon your city and your people as they have fallen upon the entire fae realm. The plague of ice has wrought suffering on us all, but I am here to tell you that you do not suffer alone, and that some of the most powerful fae in the world are working together to rid the land of this curse.’

No one heckled him. No one said a word. Everyone seemed to be collectively holding their breath. Even the birds that wheeled above the towers were perched and quiet.

‘I know there have been many rumours circulating, so let me make something clear. The plague of ice was created by Olphix the Mage, in response to Davix the Mage being killed. Some of you may not know of these Mages, twins that have lived impossibly long, operating behind the scenes, committing genocides so complete that all of you have forgotten that dragons once flew in the skies above us.’ At that, a stir in the crowd, and Mosk felt it, that surge of remembering for something he’d never even known. Mosk wished Eran was here to know that Gwyn thought the dragons were important enough to put in a speech. ‘But the plague of ice is not the worst thing we face. It is the destructive will of Olphix himself, who is not content to merely stop with the ice.’

Everyone fell silent again.

‘The Seelie Court fell because Albion allowed those Mages into his Court and did not understand – as we all failed to understand – the danger they are to our entire way of living. Fae have never been more vulnerable and my team and I are working hard to conquer Olphix as I have conquered the Nightingale. We count among us Seelie fae as well as Unseelie, and I have been working with Seelie allies like Ondine of the seas, as well as Unseelie allies. Now, more than ever, is the time to remember that we are cousins across the river and not lifelong enemies, even though that is how many of us have been raised.’

Gwyn’s words had magic in them. _Magic._ Mosk was sure of it. That wasn’t just glamour or dra’ocht, that had to be something else. It wasn’t compulsions, he knew that. He could tell. But there was something _in_ them that made Mosk want to dig inside of Gwyn’s mind and find out what all of his energy was doing and how he was doing it. Because those words made him suddenly feel like every war between the Seelie and the Unseelie was pointless and stupid. Like it was dumb to have any divisions at all.

‘When I was the Seelie King, I was many things, including a traitor, but I also never stopped advocating for diplomacy and peace-talks. Now that I am the Unseelie King, I have still never stopped advocating for diplomacy and peace-talks. Instead of dividing ourselves to recognise and celebrate our strengths, we divided ourselves to point out each other’s weaknesses and go to war over them. To fail to come together at a time when we have a common enemy is to fail each other and ourselves.’

Mosk pressed his hands abruptly to the ground, thinking quickly. Togetherness? Was that the King’s aim? He wanted togetherness?

The colours of the two crowns came to mind, the gold of the Seelie, the silver of the Unseelie. White and black was also commonly used, especially on the Seelie and Unseelie flags, but Mosk liked the precious metals, they were prettier, they were softer.

_It would be striking, like the King…_

Mosk looked at Gwyn’s golden hair and he looked at the silvery crown and he imagined two oak trees sleeping side by side in the earth as Gwyn continued talking.

‘For now, let me remind you of our code. The one we have all lived some form of, for as long as we have lived upon this land.’

Mosk felt the two saplings shooting roots down deep into the ground, unnaturally fast, and they pushed up to the tiles, mashing their spindly hungry twigs against them. Gold and silver. He could do this. But he needed more magic to do it. Taking a deep breath, he opened up his magic wider and curled his fingers into the tiles of the dais.

It would be like what he did for the Raven Prince, but he was using trees that already existed. So it was fine. It wouldn’t be as hard. He wasn’t making completely new plants. He was just…changing ones that existed, and he’d already done that before. Plenty of times before. He could do this and make it good.

‘Uphold honour and all things virtuous,’ Gwyn called out, his voice even louder than before, rolling with so much glamour or magic that Mosk felt like it was bolstering what he was doing. The tiles cracked, and silver and gold branches snaked up beside the dais. ‘And to the rest, remember that honour is a lie!’

It was the Seelie and Unseelie code side by side. Mosk stared into the crowd. Some of those people looked so poor, so hungry, so desperate. They hung on Gwyn’s words like he’d hypnotised them.

‘Duty _only_ to one’s self and one’s loved ones!’ Gwyn cried. ‘Duty to one’s family and Kingdom! And for some of us, duty to all.’

The trunks of the trees were impossible to ignore now. The oaks had taken up Mosk’s magic and were growing like juggernauts. Even Gwyn paused to stare at them, then he looked around wildly, and Mosk knew his invisibility was holding even as all his muscles tensed with the fear of being caught doing what he was doing. He needed this to seem supernatural, like the gods had blessed Gwyn. The oak trunks thickened, pushed upwards, a canopy of well-formed silver and gold leaves broke out. The tiles cracked away and the earth was pushed up before the dais, and the crowd hurriedly stepped back.

‘Beauty and ugliness are the glamours we use to feed!’ Gwyn shouted, no longer staring at the trees but into the crowd, not questioning what was happening, and Mosk felt like they were working together even though they couldn’t be. Gwyn had no idea Mosk was going to do this. But it felt good, in that moment, like they were both working towards the same goal. ‘And beauty is truth!’

‘Fervour, frenzy, agony, ecstasy and chaos are our birthright,’ Mosk whispered, feeling wild and alive and incredible. And then, needing more of his magic and swooning with a sudden shaft of dizziness plunging into each of his eyes, he made the oaks wrap around one another. They grew into each other, spiralling into one merged golden-silver tree, looped together like two serpents, joining and sharing sap and water and life as their taproots spread like arteries beneath the city of Esgrettio.

‘Change only when necessary, stay your hand when it is right,’ Gwyn called. ‘Fervour, frenzy, agony, ecstasy and chaos are our birthright!’

_‘Yeah,’_ Mosk breathed. ‘Ow, _fuck.’_

No one could hear him, no one could see him, and he gagged as he upended his own magic into the oak trees and felt like he had when the Raven Prince had ransacked him for healing magic. The trees were mature, fully grown, looked like they’d been there for centuries, and their trunks thickened around each other. They shared a common canopy of gold and silver leaves, gold and silver acorns.

_Fuck._

Mosk stopped abruptly, heaving for breath.

People were pointing at the tree, pointing at Gwyn, and Mosk dry-retched saliva into his forearm and broke out into a horrendous, sudden chill. Well. He was still learning how to use his magic. He tried closing up the balls of energy he’d opened inside himself but he couldn’t manage it. He knew he was still invisible, because everyone was staring at the tree and at the King like the mandate to unify Seelie and Unseelie was a sacred one.

‘Some of you are already calling me the Dual-King,’ Gwyn said, his voice calmer than before, but still heard by all. ‘But I ask that you consider what this world truly needs before you decide to accept a title just because someone told you that you should. I cannot walk this journey alone without the help of my Seelie and Unseelie brethren, but nor can I expect you to consider me King until I have earned my place. So, to that end, I will not wear either crown again until I have seen the ice and Olphix eradicated, so that a curse of this nature may never touch our beloved lands again.’

Gwyn removed the Unseelie crown from his head. He stood there in his armour with his sword, and Mosk lay weakly on his side and looked out towards the Esgrettians and the Summervale refugees and took a deep breath and placed his hands back on the dais. One more thing. He could do one more thing.

‘You should all be aware that we have been able to melt and weaken the ice. Summervale is free to be reclaimed by the citizens of Summervale. I know it goes against some of your natures, but I ask that you help each other rebuild as best you can.’

Mosk bit the tip of his tongue as he grew a ring of fruit trees – over fifty – around the northeast square. Four around each broken fountain. These didn’t have to be new species, and so he didn’t need as much of his magic, but he still needed some of it to augment the trees, to force them through their life cycle and make sure they were all fruiting heavily in a small period of time. Within minutes, he was done.

His vision was grey and blurry. When it cleared, he looked up at the crowd and stared in confusion.

They were all kneeling.

Every last one of them.

They were all kneeling to Gwyn, who wore no crown. Gwyn stood there for another couple of minutes, then he bowed to them in turn. _Old ways,_ Mosk thought, _he really does bring the old ways with him._ Gwyn walked calmly off the dais.

Mosk staggered as he pushed his way up and followed. Gwyn didn’t walk back towards the two members of the Cult of Taronis, but instead took another alleyway, and then his steps turned fast enough that Mosk had to run to catch up. He didn’t want to lose him, but it was hard to focus and there were black spots in front of his eyes, swimming and swaying with him. Some of them looked like the outlines of oak leaves.

Oak was one of the most sacred trees to all of the fae. Mosk had picked the right trees. They were all going to think they were supposed to work together, and with any luck, they’d spread the message.

Maybe, if they kept going to new cities, Mosk could grow more.

Gwyn opened a door into a building that looked long abandoned, and Mosk followed in confusion. In the looted, empty space filled with broken furniture, Mosk gave up his invisibility all at once because it was just getting too hard.

Within seconds, a hand around his neck and one in his hair, and he was slammed hard enough into the wall that he winced.

_‘What_ were you thinking?’ Gwyn hissed at him.

‘It was good, right?’ Mosk said, staring at him, still feeling heady from his own magic and Gwyn’s glamour and how right it had felt. ‘It was good? You saw them, didn’t you?’

Gwyn stared at him, and by the light streaming in through the windows, there was a dangerous gleam in his azure blue eyes. Mosk grinned at him, even as he wheezed for breath.

‘Tell me that wasn’t amazing,’ Mosk said.

Gwyn opened his mouth like he wanted to yell, and then a second later a cold, chilling smile curled around the corners of his mouth before it became an outright grin.

‘It was very stupid, and very ill-considered, but yes, Mosk Manytrees, that was incredible.’

They stared at each other, Mosk unable to stop smiling, until the world felt like it was sliding sideways and he looked around, before realising it was vertigo.

‘S’okay,’ Mosk said. ‘My heartsong’s risk, by the way.’

He caught a glimmer of alarm on Gwyn’s face, which he thought was about the heartsong, before he realised he was going to pass out.

_Oh,_ Mosk thought dimly. _He’s worried._

*

He woke to the sound of crackling fire and tried to scramble backwards, tangled immediately in blankets, only for two strong hands to hold him down. One on his shoulder, one on his hip. He thought it was Eran, but as he opened his eyes he realised they were still in the abandoned building and Gwyn had made a fire out of bits of broken furniture and what looked like pieces of headboard from a bed. Mosk was covered in old, threadbare blankets.

‘You and I are going to start training together,’ Gwyn said, ‘because a heartsong like risk is incredibly dangerous, but more importantly, if you can do things like that then I want to have a game plan going into the future. How did you know I’d talk about unifying the Seelie and the Unseelie?’

‘It’s what you do,’ Mosk croaked.

Gwyn presented Mosk with a bowl of water, and Mosk pushed himself up shakily. He felt like his body had been turned inside out, trembling as he picked up the wooden bowl, drinking deeply.

‘Shouldn’t we go back to the others?’

‘Soon,’ Gwyn said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bad,’ Mosk said. ‘Making trees like that… The fruit trees are easy, but those oak trees… I mean they don’t grow together like that. And they’re not gold and silver like that. I was trying to match the colours of the royal crowns.’

Mosk’s head pounded and he groaned, placing his forehead in his palms. What had seemed like a radically great idea at the time, just made him want to throw up everything including his stomach.

‘How long will they last?’ Gwyn asked. ‘A long time, yes?’

‘Probably thousands of years,’ Mosk said. ‘I don’t know _why._ They just _do.’_

‘I don’t think it’s bad to have a memento of this moment left behind for a few millennia,’ Gwyn said quietly. ‘But what if it had gone wrong, Mosk?’

‘I’m good at magic, even if I’m not good at anything else.’

‘The fruit trees were a nice touch,’ Gwyn said.

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said. ‘Everyone’s so hungry.’

Gwyn was silent, and Mosk wanted to crawl closer to the fire because he was so cold, but really what he wanted was to fall against Eran and have Eran’s arms around him. Eran’s arms and those ropes and a room where he could forget about everything. He dug his thumbs into his eyebrows. His head was killing him. He tried to close up his magic and it weakly responded, but he knew he’d be dealing with a hangover from what he’d done for at least a day.

‘We should go back,’ Mosk said.

‘No, we can wait until you’re well enough. Though make no mistake, I plan on pushing you hard if we’re going to be training together. If you can do things like that in front of a crowd that size, I’m not going to stand back and watch you hide behind excuses when you pretend you can’t do anything.’

Mosk scowled, but was too tired to talk back. He drained the rest of the water, then dropped onto his back, rubbing his forehead with the heels of his hands.

‘You want us to triumph, don’t you?’ Gwyn said quietly.

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, his voice scratchy. ‘I just don’t think we can kill Olphix. That doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong to think you can. Just…a bit stupid sometimes. Which, sorry, I know that’s not very respectful.’

‘It’s honest.’

Mosk almost pointed out that Gwyn was Unseelie and should probably prefer the lie, but he realised it didn’t matter.

‘I don’t know if we can kill him either,’ Gwyn said, his voice so much different now, to how he’d been talking on the stage before. ‘But I didn’t know how to go about getting rid of that ice before you showed us it was possible. So perhaps if we work together, we’ll figure out a way. I barely dare imagine a world after all of this, with all that will be left to heal and rebuild, but Mosk, if you survive it, you can spend as much time as you like with Eran.’

_If he wants to spend any time with me, which…I really doubt it._ Once Eran could choose literally anyone again, or even go back to his homeland, that was it. That was it for the both of them.

Mosk rolled sideways before pushing himself upwards. He rocked a little with the throbbing of his heart before he finally felt stable. His vision still wasn’t quite right, and his head was aching, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

‘They all kneeled for you,’ Mosk said. ‘All of them. You don’t want to believe it, but they need to believe in it, and you’re letting them, aren’t you? Even though you don’t want it.’

‘It’s a good strategy.’

‘And taking on the blame for me killing Stertes? What was that? That wasn’t a good strategy.’

‘No,’ Gwyn said, smiling softly to himself when Mosk dared to look at him. ‘That was something I knew I could carry better than you could. The land and sea fae aren’t ready to put their differences to bed just yet, but I’m ready to bring more sea fae into my Court, I’m ready to listen, I’m ready to learn. So let me carry that burden. Because perhaps I can turn that into something worthwhile for the fae, and if I can’t, well, I can say I tried.’

‘But they think you killed him.’

‘I would have killed him,’ Gwyn said, staring into the fire. ‘If I’d seen what you saw. Of course it wouldn’t have been smart, and I was furious at the time, but upon reflection… I don’t know how you don’t know that about me, but you don’t. I’ve killed for Augus – and none of those murders were ever exactly sound strategical choices. I would have killed for Eran. Don’t forget, I am bound to him by Kabiri’s curse. I felt some of what he was experiencing. Not all of it, but enough to know what was happening.’

Mosk stared at him, but Gwyn didn’t look away from the fire.

‘I was shocked at how quickly you’d managed it,’ Gwyn said, ‘but ultimately I cannot say I would have acted differently, only I would have drawn a sword or a knife or wrenched his head off his body with my bare hands. But when you ended his suffering, you ended mine too.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know. I…forgot.’

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Gwyn said. ‘Don’t tell Eran that, obviously, because I know it is very bad by his standards. However in the grand scheme of the things I have known in my life…’ Gwyn linked his fingers together and stretched his arms in front of himself, looking like just a regular fae, instead of the King. ‘Anyway, let’s just say in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been through worse.’

‘He thinks what he went through is nothing because of what I’ve been through. I don’t know how to tell him that it doesn’t work like that.’

‘Just believing that it doesn’t work like that, and letting him know you believe that, is enough,’ Gwyn said. ‘Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but in time, it will be.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, who knows?’ Gwyn laughed. ‘Do you think I know the first thing about love or relationships? No. Let’s go back to talking about strategies, shall we? Or have you had enough?’

‘My head hurts,’ Mosk mumbled, pulling the blankets closer to him.

‘Well, you were very silly, weren’t you?’

‘Shut up,’ Mosk said under his breath. ‘I only wanted to help.’

‘You did,’ Gwyn said.

Silence stretched out around them. No fae followed them to where they were, and the fire continued to crackle and burn. Mosk needed sap, he needed Eran. But he was excited too. Training with the King meant he was not only useful, but Gwyn could think of other ways he could be useful. And maybe he was right, Mosk had killed Davix, and Mosk could melt the ice, so maybe if they worked together…

He shied away from the thought. No, killing Olphix was impossible. But at the very least, Mosk could help keep them all alive for a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Intrusions' -
> 
> ‘Mosk, what are you doing?’ Eran said, staring at him. 
> 
> Mosk’s fingers shook, his breath came out in strained shallow puffs as he placed the stick of eyeliner against Eran’s face. And Eran could tell the moment Mosk was going to rush the lines and his hand shot out, grasping Mosk’s wrist firmly.
> 
> ‘When I said you’d be doing my eyeliner every morning, I meant you’d also understand the gravity of what I was trusting you to do every morning. If you can’t concentrate on me, then don’t bother.’


	6. Intrusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, the world's a bit on fire at the moment but we always have Mosk and Eran to keep us company! Although they're kind of...dealing with some stuff themselves at the moment. 
> 
> (I'm currently listening to all of the crickets in our roof as I type this. Sometimes they drop down through a vent and then one of our cats, Maybe, deals it a swift and savage death. I feel like our house is probably like, a rogue-style dungeon to all the crickets above us.)

_Eran_

*

A low, burning rage grew from the worry curdling in Eran’s belly. As they packed to leave Esgrettio, fae were still talking to Gwyn about the fruit trees that had grown, the silver-and-gold oak they were calling ‘the King’s Tree.’

Eran saw how pale and exhausted Mosk was when he’d returned not from working on the magic in the Raven Prince’s charm like he’d claimed, but from over-extending his magic in front of thousands of people. Eran saw the look Gwyn gave him, a mixture of concern and something avid, like he wanted to grab all of Mosk’s power and magic and use it. Eran knew those trees weren’t a miracle and he knew they didn’t happen by accident. Mosk didn’t say a single word about it – which was how Eran knew he felt ashamed – but it was obvious what he’d done.

When they headed off, Eran took the trailing rope from Mosk’s wrist and hung onto it, his body burning warmer than usual. They left through a different gate than the one they’d entered through. Melio and El’eth, and the two members of the Cult of Taronis waved them off, and hundreds of Esgrettians came and cheered for them. Eran didn’t trust it. He didn’t see the speech, he didn’t see the King’s Tree, he didn’t see what Mosk and Gwyn had done together. It seemed like all at once everyone had changed their minds. For a mostly Seelie town, it felt fickle and disloyal and strange.

Maybe everyone was just that desperate. Eran understood desperation, he _did,_ and he wasn’t fickle or disloyal or strange.

Except that he’d stopped calling Gwyn the Traitor King, and he liked him now, and he was in love with the person who started out as his enemy.

Eran’s fingers curled around the hilt of his kh’anzar and stared at the path ahead of them. Green and gold tiles. Lakes like mirrored disks. In the distance a line of mountains loomed and promised endless, difficult walking. He stared at this alien land and wanted his homeland so badly it was like a coal in his throat. He could swallow around it, but he felt it every time.

Augus and Gwyn walked at the front of the group, Ash and Julvia took up the rear. Ash chatted animatedly about Esgrettio, and Julvia asked him questions about the places he’d been in this realm and the human realm.

Eran wanted badly to talk to Mosk about what he’d done, how he was over-extending himself, but even with Ash and Julvia talking and not paying attention, he didn’t want to be overheard. Mosk kept looking at him, at first with a bright curiosity in his eyes, but now with nervousness. It made Eran want to scream. He hadn’t hurt Mosk in such a long time. He went out of his way to avoid hurting Mosk.

Mosk sensed anger and reacted to it like Eran wanted to slice him open with a blade.

 _I’m trying my best,_ he wanted to say.

Mosk was now crucial to whatever Gwyn was doing. Eran was there because his god had made Gwyn take him, and Eran felt his uselessness while walking this strange land, among people who weren’t his family, and smelled salt water and the sea in the back of his nose and felt like they’d come too far for him to keep smelling it. So why did he keep smelling it?

His chest felt like bands of iron were tightening around it. He thought he was supposed to feel better now that he wasn’t on the Mantissa. That was the whole point. He wasn’t on the sea now, he was supposed to feel _better._

*

That evening, at the edge of a forest of large, ancient trees and unsettling sounds within, Eran made a larger fire than usual. Gwyn had directed him to certain safe places to gather wood, telling him that to use any living wood would bring a curse upon them. Then Gwyn looked back at the trees fondly and Eran wanted to throw a branch in his face. Who looked at trees that cursed people _fondly?_

Gwyn and Mosk, that’s who.

Mosk refused to sit around the larger fire and Eran felt like he should be trying harder to involve him, but he needed to melt whatever had frozen inside his body. He was aware that something was wrong, certain the fire would help. He placed his hands in it, he sang to it – Mosk ventured a few steps closer at that – and he turned the tips of the flames blue and red just because he could.

He’d mattered once. He’d mattered in his village. He was going to be a chieftain, he was going to take Iliak’s place, it was written into his surname and spoken on the lips of the afrit and ambaros around him. Ifir had surrendered it, allowed it, giving up the possibility of calling his son ‘Ifirambar’ in the process.

_I matter. I matter._

But not enough that Mosk would tell him when he’d planned something stupid and dangerous. Not enough that Mosk would come back to him when he was distressed. Eran’s fire wasn’t hot enough to melt the ice, but Mosk could walk up to it and it would listen to him.

Their group left a trail of bodies behind them. Eran felt like they weren’t bringing life back to the world, even though they’d been cheered by those Esgrettian fae.

‘Hey,’ Ash said, interrupting Eran’s thoughts as they camped. He handed Eran some plums. ‘Apparently they’re from the trees Mosk grew. But they’re like, the best I’ve ever had. They’ll probably taste even better roasted or whatever.’

‘Thank you,’ Eran said, taking them. He wasn’t hungry, but he carefully cooked the plums in their fragile skins until the sugars caramelised and they were hot in his hands. He bit into one, juices bursting immediately so that he had to lean forward and let them drip down his stubble and chin.

It was the best piece of fruit he’d eaten in his entire life. The sweetness was complex, the tartness danced on his tongue, the flesh itself was fulsome and rich. He ate it and then sucked the flesh off the pit, tossing the seed into the fire. He ran his hand over the juices on his stubble, his palm getting sticky.

He looked at Mosk where he was hiding away from the fire. Mosk watched him in return, his expression shadowed, too hard to read.

As he bit into the second plum, Augus walked up to Mosk and talked to him quietly. They both walked off together.

Eran knew why. He knew why, abruptly he was furious all over again. Mosk was still recovering from using his magic, and Mosk wasn’t going to say no to anyone. He was going to let everyone use him, and he wasn’t going to tell Eran about it in the process. He’d get himself killed just because people were being nice to him, because he was suddenly _useful._

Despite the scent of the plums in his nose, despite the taste in his mouth, despite the charcoal and the soot on the back of his tongue and the fire burning the wood to coals, he could still smell the sea.

‘Are we close to the ocean here?’ Eran said.

‘No,’ Gwyn said. ‘It would take several days to reach it. Why?’

Eran stared into Gwyn’s bright blue eyes, then shoved his juice covered hands into the fire. Maybe the smell was coming from a lake. Maybe there was a lake with salt water in it nearby.

He looked to the shadows of the trees where Mosk had been standing, before he walked off to have his blood taken. Shouldn’t Augus and Mosk have checked in with him first? What if Mosk needed the kind of care he did last time? What if it was bad again?

No one else seemed bothered.

Eran felt a terror looming over all of them and forced himself to stare at the fire. He realised he’d never replied to Gwyn. But when he looked up, Gwyn was running a cloth along his sword, sharpening it, concentration turning his face grim.

Perhaps he felt the looming terror too.

*

The next morning, Eran woke and reached out absently. His eyes flew open when Mosk wasn’t there. That hadn’t happened for weeks. Mosk was always there – even if he was awake first – and he was always ready to do Eran’s eyeliner.

Eran pushed up, alarmed, afraid. He saw Gwyn and Mosk some distance away, doing what could only be called _training._ He stared in amazement and no small amount of outrage. There were only two rules. There were only _two._ Mosk did Eran’s eyeliner in the morning and he came to bed and slept with Eran every night. The only other rule was Eran’s, that he would make sure Mosk had enough food, had enough clothing, had shelter.

Gwyn tossed small objects towards Mosk with a slow underhand, and Mosk batted each item away with a wooden tentacle. Two he’d grown from the trees in the forest, but two reached straight out of the ground, like an eldritch octopus living in the soil beneath his feet. That was new. Eran had only seen him grow them out of trees or planks.

As he watched, Mosk gathered up everything Gwyn had thrown and brought it back to him, then moved back into place. Gwyn said something, Mosk nodded and crouched in readiness. The next time Gwyn threw something, he threw it _hard._ Mosk moved the tentacles so fast they were a blur, but the object – a stone? – hit Mosk in the shoulder and shoved him backwards. Mosk’s hand immediately went up to his arm and Eran ground his teeth together.

Gwyn jogged over to Mosk, but the dryad only shook his head. Eran could imagine him saying it was fine. A few seconds later, Mosk looked over to Eran and saw he was awake.

In less than a minute, he was by Eran’s side, reaching for the eyeliner.

‘You weren’t awake long, were you?’ Mosk said. ‘Gwyn got up early, and he wanted to start training.’

‘Is your shoulder wounded?’ Eran said.

‘No, I mean…it’s fine. It’s an opportunity to practice healing magic. Although I can do that later. Because healing magic is hard and I can’t concentrate on anything else when I do it.’

Eran had no idea Mosk had been practicing healing magic. And the way he made it sound… Eran couldn’t recall a single time that Mosk had offered to help heal anyone else. So he was healing himself? But when, and how? How was he getting injured enough to manage that?

‘Mosk, what are you doing?’ Eran said, staring at him.

Mosk’s fingers shook, his breath came out in strained shallow puffs as he placed the stick of eyeliner against Eran’s face. And Eran could tell the moment Mosk was going to rush the lines and his hand shot out, grasping Mosk’s wrist firmly.

‘When I said you’d be doing my eyeliner every morning, I meant you’d also understand the gravity of what I was trusting you to do every morning. If you can’t concentrate on me, then don’t bother.’

He felt cruel saying it, after the way Mosk’s eyes darted to him, bright and injured. But Eran didn’t look away, he knew that Mosk was only going to draw the eyeliner and run off again. His head was elsewhere.

‘I can concentrate,’ Mosk said, staring at him.

But his eyes darted to Gwyn. Eran let go of his wrist and took the stick of eyeliner out of Mosk’s hand with a swift movement. Mosk stared in dismay, but Eran – still smelling salt in the back of his nose and feeling like he just wanted Mosk to keep caring for him like he had before, back by the Seelie Court – shook his head.

‘Go back to what you were doing. I don’t want you doing the eyeliner this morning. When you can treat it with the respect it deserves again, I’ll let you.’

‘But- Eran, I can…’

Eran was already drawing the lines. Truthfully, his head wasn’t in the right space for it either, but he wanted the security, he wanted the black lines framing his amber irises and he wanted to feel like what he _was_ , a beloved afrit-ambaros.

_Once loved, because they’re all dead now._

‘Eran, _no_ ,’ Mosk said, his voice smaller.

‘Go back to what you were doing.’

‘But…’ Mosk’s voice shrank until it was feathery, and Eran couldn’t hear his breathing at all. His chest clenched, he hated feeling like he was the bad guy when Mosk was the one who had started it. Mosk was the one who only seemed to care for him when _Mosk_ needed something. And as soon as Mosk was doing better, Eran was left in the dust, and Mosk was giving Augus his blood, and helping Gwyn, and…injuring himself? No, he couldn’t deal with that now.

‘I’m nearly done,’ Eran said. ‘Gwyn’s waiting for you.’

Mosk crouched there by his side for another minute, Eran was already done with his second eye. Eran didn’t say a word. He was going to start yelling, he could feel it bubbling away in him like lava. When Mosk went back to Gwyn – walking this time, instead of running – Eran felt heavy and tired.

He heard Julvia’s footsteps approaching and looked up at her, saw the enquiring look on her face. He shook his head. He felt bad. Julvia was still recovering from the grief of having to say farewell to Ondine after giving her heart away to her, and while Julvia was coping well, he knew he was lucky to even have Mosk with him on this journey in the first place. The idea of complaining to her about it made him feel like he was taking advantage.

‘Everything’s happening very fast,’ Julvia said instead, her head turned towards Gwyn and Mosk.

‘It is,’ Eran agreed.

‘Do you want anything to eat? There are a few more of those plums from yesterday.’

‘No, thank you,’ Eran said, thinking again of how Mosk had gone and grown all those trees without telling anyone.

Julvia walked away. Eran watched as Gwyn and Mosk continued with training, as though nothing had ever stopped them in the first place.

Eran placed his hands to the soil and the grass beneath his palms sizzled.

*

It took three days to get through the forest, and they encountered the ice swarming the trees on the last day. It was sluggish, but it still moved. Eran’s skin prickled all over with goosebumps as he watched it oozing around. Mosk walked over to it like it had never been a threat to him and the ice broke apart all around them after ten minutes of Mosk holding his hands to it. But it took hours longer for the ice to melt away enough to make it possible for them to continue on their path.

Mosk said he’d walk along the perimeter of the ice to see if it needed weakening anywhere else, and Gwyn didn’t tell Mosk to bring someone with him, didn’t tell him not to leave the group. Gwyn was beginning to trust that Mosk was capable.

Eran thought Gwyn was being foolish, and followed along behind Mosk, teeth grinding together.

He hadn’t let Mosk do his eyeliner once since the day he’d woken alone. He felt hollow and awful about it, like smoke that couldn’t escape, trapped and seething and waiting. He’d given Mosk rules, but they’d never talked about what to do if Eran was the one who started breaking them. Eran never thought he would. But the idea of Mosk leaning close to him, looking into his eyes that deeply, doing the eyeliner, it was too overwhelming.

‘You don’t need to come with me,’ Mosk said. ‘I know you don’t like the ice.’

‘It can’t do anything around you, can it? Because you’re absorbing all that magic and the heartsong and you still don’t know what that’s doing to you.’

Mosk was silent. He’d been mostly silent since Eran had rejected him on the outskirts of the forest.

‘I don’t,’ Mosk said eventually. ‘But the ice still needs to be stopped, and no one else can do it. Whatever happens because of what I’m doing, if it’s bad, I’ll just have to deal with it when it gets bad.’

‘Right,’ Eran said. ‘Like everything you’re doing. Every stupid thing.’

Mosk’s steps faltered, he looked over his shoulder at Eran, wary.

‘What?’ Eran snapped. ‘Why are you looking at _me_ like that? You’re the one who decided to go off and spend all your magic when Gwyn did his speech. Did you think of what would happen if you _failed?_ What if the King’s Tree died in front of everyone? What then? Did you think of what would happen if you collapsed while you were invisible and none of us could find you? You don’t think, Mosk! You never think!’

Mosk stopped walking. He slapped his hand into an outcrop of ice and Eran heard the sounds of it becoming brittle. It sounded like glass breaking sometimes, at other times it was weird crackling and popping. Even here, even within the shadows of the forest, he could see the bodies of animals and people. No one could escape its destruction. Mosk was always too late to save anyone.

‘I think about things a lot,’ Mosk said.

‘You’re getting yourself hurt, you’re behaving like a _fool._ It’s obvious you don’t care about me, now that you’re getting what you want from everyone else. People are finally paying attention to you because you can do things for them, and what, suddenly you don’t care about anything else?’

Mosk turned to him, a sharp look on his face, his chest rising and falling on a quick breath.

‘It’s obvious how much my care and attention means to you,’ Eran continued, ‘when you’ve been taking it for granted now that you’re getting a shred of attention the others.’

‘Eran-’

‘What, Augus wants you for your _blood,_ and Gwyn wants to use you for a _war,_ and you think that means they care about you?’

Eran heard the words he was saying, dully horrified, but he couldn’t stop himself. His anger spiked into something huge, he felt the shape of the monster inside of him, huge teeth, a huge maw, flaming wings and claws like scythes. He felt his fur brush up against his insides, prickling and making him feel like nothing fit. He exhaled sparks, and Mosk flinched.

‘You said…’ Mosk said. ‘You said they cared. You said that night when Augus took my blood for the first time. And I can help now. I’m helping!’

‘So you got what you wanted from me, and now you’re done?’

‘I had one bad day!’ Mosk shouted. ‘I had _one_ day where I was excited to be training with Gwyn and now you’re the one not letting me do your eyeliner! You’re the one who doesn’t want me now that I’m like this! At least I can give Augus blood, and I can train with Gwyn, while you…you won’t even let me paint those stupid lines on your stupid fucking face!’

‘You’re the one who keeps acting so recklessly in the first place! I can’t believe what you did in Esgrettio. I don’t care that it helped, you didn’t know that it would! That was dangerous, Mosk. You know it’s not just me that would be mad about that, even the Raven Prince would’ve thought that was _foolish._ You’re being a child about your powers. Just because people are taking advantage of it, doesn’t mean you’re powerful in any way that matters.’

Mosk’s mouth had opened as soon as Eran mentioned the Raven Prince. It didn’t close again. His eyes were wide, and now they gleamed. His breath shuddered out of him, Eran heard it alongside the sound of ice breaking around them.

‘I can’t believe you,’ Eran said, hanging onto his anger because he didn’t want to feel anything else. ‘I can’t believe that you would-’

Mosk raised his arm until he could bend it across his chest, fist up by his shoulder, rope pressing against his own shirt. He stared at Eran in horror, and Eran stared at the gesture, confused, before he remembered what it meant.

It was the first time Mosk had ever used it around him.

 _‘I want you to make that signal when my anger starts to get control of me. And if I see it, and remember what it means, I’ll find another way of dealing with my anger, so I can talk to you_ properly _about what’s upsetting me. Even if you feel you deserve the anger, Mosk, I want you to do that, okay? I need you to help me with this. I would really appreciate your help.’_

But saying it wasn’t the same as seeing it. It wasn’t the same as realising Mosk would hate using a signal like that in the first place. He’d never use it unless he felt cornered.

Eran’s anger still bubbled, stronger and wilder and coarser. He just wanted to stop smelling the ocean in the back of his throat. He just wanted to stop seeing bodies in the ice. It never seemed to stop. Reminders of what the ice was doing always came back, even if he was lucky enough to forget for a minute, or even an hour or a day. It always came back. There were always bodies, and they were always going to remind him of his family.

‘Okay,’ Eran said heavily, smoke coming out of his mouth. Mosk backed away from him in alarm, pressing back against the ice. The _ice._ Eran laughed in despair. ‘Okay, Mosk. I’ll try again later.’

He turned and walked back to the camp, his feet squelching into sodden soil, listening to the sound of trees and bodies falling in the distance as the ice released them. He left Mosk alone by the ice. Mosk really didn’t need anyone looking out for him. Gwyn was right, he could handle it on his own.

*

Another four days. Roads and forests and ice, and Eran refused to let Mosk do his eyeliner every morning. On the seventh day, Mosk didn’t even hold the little tin of black sticks in expectation, only to look shattered every time Eran plucked the tin from his fingers without a word. He left them there by Eran’s side and was off training with Gwyn. He was already doing impossible things at Gwyn’s command, like making wooden walls around the two of them, or growing many wooden spikes in a certain direction within seconds.

Mosk not even offering to do his eyeliner was a knife in Eran’s chest. Eran knew it was a knife he’d put there himself. It felt wrong doing the eyeliner on his own.

He never found another way to say what he’d been trying to say, and he didn’t want to talk to Mosk in front of the others. He didn’t hold the rope around Mosk’s wrist in his hand.

Ash and Julvia both tried to ask him what was wrong and Eran never knew what to say. He felt almost as bad as when they’d disembarked from the Mantissa, but it had been easy to lean towards Mosk then. Easy to turn towards him and have him there. Now Eran felt overwhelmed and strange when anyone crowded him.

The weather turned cooler, a chill hanging around the ground, as they walked on a wider, black brick road heading towards Paelfort. Eran had learned it was a military fortress that housed the Seelie gryphon military, though it had become a city over time, known for its black stones quarried nearby and the gryphons that soared overhead. The trees here were taller than any Eran had ever seen, their canopies so far up that he had to crane his neck all the way back to see them. Every now and then – suspended from branches – he saw flat, huge platforms that blocked out the sun and created large shadowed or rectangular squares on the ground.

‘Gryphon roosts,’ Gwyn had said, as though that explained everything.

Then, they saw sculptures of raptors and large cats around the place, made from the black stone so that they appeared like shadows in the forests.

‘They make devas of the animals they share characteristics with,’ Gwyn said. He had a habit of educating them if they looked or pointed at things. Gwyn knew so much about the whole fae realm. He’d even known about Sounhaqh and desert fae.

‘They’re prone to arrogance,’ Augus said. ‘I never did any diplomatic work with them because they refused to lower themselves to work with water fae of any kind. They’d only work with the Raven Prince, and they considered the raven a lesser animal.’

‘Nice,’ Ash said. ‘Fae xenophobia.’

‘What do they think of swans?’ Julvia said.

‘Actually,’ Augus said, smiling to himself. ‘They somewhat like swans, which I believe is confusing for them, since you live on the water. But of course swans are regal and have Princess and Princesses. Even Kings like Innokenti.’

‘My father,’ Julvia said.

‘You’ll likely be treated with respect, my lady,’ Augus said.

‘Good.’ Julvia stretched her wings out, first one and then the other, so large that they still filled Eran with awe even now.

Mosk walked ahead of them all, on the lookout for the ice. It hadn’t tried to attack them once. Every time they found it, the ice was either sluggish, or more often, it had already stopped moving. Eran wondered if it was a side effect of Mosk weakening Davix’s spirit, or Mosk’s magic growing. He didn’t understand it and he knew Mosk didn’t either. Gwyn said it was likely that the ice couldn’t find the heat or fire energy it wanted here, and was still out of control in the desert. That was even worse to contemplate.

He stared at Mosk’s back and Eran’s fingers curled like he was holding the rope he could see trailing down by Mosk’s thigh.

They needed to talk, but all Eran had in his chest and throat was anger and agitation and the feeling that the sea would never leave him.

*

The city of Paelfort was grim. It looked like many fortresses stitched together with battlements, all made from the same black stones. Above the city, gryphons wheeled under the clouds, and it was clear that they held large, forbidding spears and were – at any time – ready to come down and aerial attack anyone who wasn’t welcome.

Their group were shown into the city immediately. Two guards in hybrid form wearing armour that even plated the bridges of their wings, held their spears with the tips down at the ground and bowed deeply to Gwyn and called him the Dual-King.

They were led along black streets, streetlamps filled with magelights everywhere to bring an eerie light to a city that seemed bathed in darkness. Long tapestries hung from the towers in bright colours, there were planters of tended grass everywhere. Eran was surprised it was grass and not flowers, but he liked the effect against the black stone.

A Duke waved them in to his villa with its black pillars and flat sections of the roof that might have been roosts. He wore the same armour as many of the others. Gwyn treated it like it was normal, and Eran got the sense that the gryphons sank a lot of their identity into their military prowess. It reminded him of home, the marid-djinn afrit were the same. War and battle was in their blood, they were proud of their ability to fight and protect their homes and loved ones. Eran had felt some of that pride when he was younger, but this journey had made him realise he didn’t want to be constantly ready to cut someone with his kh’anzar, he didn’t want to feel like he had to kill someone to protect what he cared for.

He knew he’d do it. He’d do it in an instant if Mosk was threatened. But he didn’t want to have to carry that concern with him everywhere he went. The weight of his father’s disappointment weighed on him, even as the Duke talked to Gwyn in his alien language, his deep voice occasionally punctuated by whistles and short eagle cries. His wings were huge, even larger than Gulvi’s, and his lion’s tail lashed behind him. His golden eyes gleamed behind his helm, and his orange-brown hair grew out like a mane. He was even taller than Gwyn.

Gwyn knew the same language as the gryphon Duke, and their conversation was still happening when servants came and drew the rest of them away to the rooms they’d be staying in.

Along with rooms, they were given a guest’s lounge. There were more of those black stone ‘devas’ around the place, but only lions and eagles here. Even small ones on the table, like children’s toys. On a small table, Eran saw a chess set where all the pieces were carved from the same black stone. The ‘white’ pieces had their lion heads dipped in creamy white paint. The black pieces were forbidding eagles.

Gwyn returned to them an hour later, long after servants had come with generous platters of food, much of it meat.

‘We’re staying for two nights,’ Gwyn said. ‘Gettinber wanted us to stay longer. It seems Albion has been here too. Of course Albion has always had contracts with the gryphons. He always paid them handsomely when he contracted them to shoreline ocean skirmishes, and they’re practiced at dealing with sirens. Anyway, the gryphons are grateful that the ice has been removed, believe I’m the Dual-King, offered payment in clipaks, and have had no issues hunting due to their ability to fly over the ice. It sounds like the roads to Gevtivar are mostly clear. But the land gets colder and darker that way, likely the ice didn’t want to go there.’

He looked at Augus as he said it, and Augus, leaning back against an armchair embroidered richly in black and red, sighed.

‘I still don’t think we should visit the Ratcatcher,’ Augus said.

‘I know, but even drinking blood regularly, you’re ailing. I still think that if you and Ash could _both_ eat properly, paying the Ratcatcher’s debt would be worthwhile.’

‘Is the blood not helping?’ Mosk said.

‘It’s helping,’ Augus said, smiling grimly. ‘I’m walking of my own volition, aren’t I? But I’m still weak, and while the necklace helps me, it can only help Ash so much through the Soulbond.’

‘I can hold out,’ Ash said.

‘For years?’ Gwyn said, as Ash blanched. ‘We don’t know how long this will last, and something is better than nothing. Gevtivar gets us closer to the School of the Staff and if necessary we can branch out to Mauerland if we have to.’

‘Maybe I’ll get strong enough to open the realm again,’ Mosk said.

Eran stared at him. ‘Olphix _and_ Davix did that together, didn’t they? You really think you’re going to be as strong as the both of them combined?’

‘Why not?’ Mosk said coolly, staring back him.

‘What about how much it’ll hurt you to do it?’ Eran snapped.

‘Sure,’ Mosk said, ‘because that matters more than all the fae that are dying.’

‘There’s no point talking about something that’s impossible right now,’ Gwyn said, cutting off Eran’s response, casting a disapproving look over to Mosk. ‘There’s no guarantee that even defeating Olphix will remove that barrier. But we need to first deal with Olphix, and then we can deal with issues over teleporting and getting into the human realm.’

Mosk looked like he wanted to disagree, but in the end he stayed stonily silent. Julvia started asking questions about gryphons, and soon she and Gwyn were talking about bird fae dialects and how they differed from all the others. Eran had long finished eating and walked off to the room he’d already put his pack in, tempted to pitch face first onto the bed.

Instead, he walked into a bathroom that was far larger than he expected. The shower was massive, and Eran realised it was shaped so that the gryphons could stay in hybrid form and clean their wings. There were huge shower brushes with very soft bristles that looked like they might be for feathers. There was also a large, furred section of wall that they could rub their wings against to dry and groom them. Eran went to the mirror and removed his eyeliner, hating the heaviness in his gut.

Tomorrow morning he’d be drawing the lines on his own again.

He washed his face. Afters he turned hands red hot and steamed the rest of the water off his face just by touching it. When he walked back into the bedroom, Mosk was standing there, his arms up close to his chest, fingers by his mouth.

‘I think we need…to talk?’ Mosk said.

‘About what?’ Eran said tiredly. ‘You saving the world? You becoming the most powerful person on the planet?’

‘Um,’ Mosk said. ‘No… Not that. Are you ever going to let me do your eyeliner again? I don’t understand what I did. I mean I _know_ I did something wrong, but I’ve been- I didn’t know it was so bad.’

Mosk looked away, then frowned. Eran stared at him and felt cornered, even though the room was gryphon-large. Even the bed was huge. It was a building designed for large, tall fae with wings. It wasn’t his _home._ For a long time that just made him sad, but now it snapped and popped through him, and he was left angry and on edge.

‘I don’t know how many rules I can make to stop someone like you being so reckless,’ Eran said finally. ‘Maybe there’s no point having any rules with you at all.’

Mosk’s grey eyes jerked to his, his face stricken. ‘What?’

Eran couldn’t think of anything to say. He knew his words had been mean, he could feel that he wasn’t going to say anything kind. The worst part was that none of it felt like lies. There was a part of him that was so snarling and wrathful towards the world that it only wanted to swipe and cut.

‘I’m not safe for you right now,’ Eran said. ‘You should sleep somewhere else tonight.’

‘But I don’t want to,’ Mosk said, his voice shrinking. ‘I don’t want to sleep somewhere else. I don’t want to…not be allowed to do your eyeliner. Eran, please. What can I do to help you? What am I doing wrong?’

‘Not everything is about you! Okay? Not everything is about you! I know it seems like it _must_ be, because you’re the one who can get rid of the ice and you’re the one who can make the _King’s Tree_ and you’re the one who can do fucking everything all of a sudden, but people have emotions that aren’t always to do with _you!’_

‘This isn’t like you,’ Mosk said. ‘Normally I’m the one yelling.’

‘I’m allowed to yell,’ Eran bit out.

‘No- I- I know that. I’m not saying you’re not allowed. If it’s not about me then, uh, sure, okay. What is it about?’

Mosk wrung his hands together. Eran didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what this was about. What could he bring up that he hadn’t brought up before? And what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t a grief he could share with his family and cleanse out of his system. His family were _gone._ He could burn the whole world down and it wouldn’t matter.

‘I didn’t know I was going to make the King’s Tree until I did it,’ Mosk said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t even care about how you hurt yourself when you do things like that,’ Eran said. ‘And I’m too tired to care about it for you. I don’t want you here tonight.’

‘What?’ Mosk said, his eyes widening. ‘But, no- Eran, I won’t say anything else. I’ll be quiet, I promise. I can sleep on the floor, or I can-’

Mosk’s wheedling twisted hard and painfully in Eran’s gut, and his anger roared up in response to it. Anger at himself, anger at the world.

‘Get out,’ Eran said, pointing at the door.

Mosk stared at the door and took a step towards it, then looked at Eran again, his mouth open.

‘What,’ Eran snapped, ‘you don’t like to listen to my orders anymore? I said _get out!’_

Mosk wrapped an arm around himself and Eran hated that he couldn’t find any of the soft places inside of himself. Soft places he needed for Mosk, for himself. It was all fire and burning inside of him, behind his eyes, in his throat, in his fingertips. He exhaled sparks then, through his nose and mouth, and whatever Mosk saw on his face was enough.

Mosk left, closing the door quietly behind him.

It was so immature to feel abandoned when he was the one who sent Mosk away, but that was how he felt. He felt guilty, he hadn’t given Mosk any sap or followed through on any of his promises.

He went into the bathroom and closed the arched door behind him, then sank down on the cold black tiles and pressed his hands to his face. The first sob felt like a knife stabbing into him, and the rest followed in jagged, sharp bursts. He still felt cornered, he still felt trapped, and as he curled around himself and cried, he realised that he tasted the sea in his mouth not because they were close to the sea after all, but because of a memory. All because of a memory that he couldn’t seem to stop from coursing through his body even when he wasn’t thinking about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Bad Habits' -
> 
> ‘How long have you been doing this for?’ Eran said, staring at him.
> 
> ‘Well, it’s not any of your business, is it? Because you were the one who shoved me away in the first place! I’m not accountable to you! I don’t have to do what you say and I don’t have to answer your questions. What, are you _worried_ about me? Like you haven’t been for…’ 
> 
> Mosk swallowed the rest of his sentence, it made it too real. It made the distance between them too real. 
> 
> ‘What right do you have to tell me I can’t do this?’ Mosk said finally, his voice thready. ‘What right? You won’t let me draw the lines on your eyes. You don’t care if I’m in bed with you or not. Should I even be keeping this on my wrist, Eran?’ 
> 
> He held up the wrist with the rope on it. Eran stared at it, and Mosk saw his throat bob on a swallow. 
> 
> ‘Don’t take it off,’ Eran said, his voice rough.


	7. Bad Habits

_Mosk_

*

Just like that, the rules and structure that formed an anchor in Mosk’s life vanished. He felt hollow, far more lost than he felt before he had the rules in the first place. A giant grub took place inside of him, chewing all his organs every day, and the only way he could distract himself from the pain of Eran ignoring him and not talking to him was by doing whatever he could to help others. Which also seemed to make Eran angry.

Mosk knew that some of it had nothing to do with him. He knew some of it was about Stertes, the Mantissa, the fact that they were back on land and Eran had to be around the ice all the time. He knew that.

But he also knew some of it was because of a morning where he’d woken early and couldn’t sleep, and Gwyn was awake too. Gwyn had invited him to try training for the first time with a pleased, happy spark in his eye. Mosk had gone and he’d looked at Eran so often that he’d ended up getting injured twice. Finally, Gwyn lectured him for not focusing and Mosk became absorbed in the training.

He missed the moment Eran woke. He’d been worried he’d miss it, and then he’d missed it, and he tried to convince himself it would be fine, and then it wasn’t fine.

Now he turned and watched Augus’ head bowed over his arm. His black mane was glossy, the waterweed looked healthy. But he also remembered Augus looking healthier back in the Unseelie Court when he saw Augus years ago at the Masque. He remembered Augus looking healthier even when he’d interrogated him in the dungeon.

The drawing sensation in his arm was deep, and Mosk winced and twitched as he felt it ripple up into his shoulder. Augus would stop soon. He always stopped when those twinges started.

‘I wish it did more,’ Mosk said to the top of Augus’ head. ‘I’d look at the magic in the charm he gave you, but I don’t want to ruin it.’

Augus lifted his head, pressing his thumb down hard just above the cut, enough that Mosk made a face. That hurt too. But it slowed the blood down.

‘It does plenty,’ Augus said, his throat thick with Mosk’s blood. ‘But nothing will substitute human bone and flesh. If I only needed human blood, Ash would never kill another human again. He’d just steal blood. I believe that’s something you can do over there. They store it in pouches.’

‘Oh.’

‘Like your sap,’ Augus said, smirking at him. ‘Are things still not going well with Eran?’

‘Uh. No,’ Mosk said. ‘He just… He’s just going through stuff.’

‘That he is,’ Augus agreed, sighing. He didn’t release pressure from Mosk’s forearm, but he handed Mosk the cup of water that he always had on hand whenever he took blood from Mosk’s forearm. Mosk could have easily gotten it himself, but he liked seeing it there, because it meant Augus had thought ahead and decided to do something nice. Mosk was starting to see why Gwyn liked him.

‘I don’t know what else I can do,’ Mosk said.

‘You’ve tried talking to him, like we discussed. You can’t force someone to do things on your schedule. Well, _I_ can, but you don’t have those skills.’ Augus smiled at him briefly. ‘We’re keeping an eye on him. And more importantly,’ Augus said, gently chafing Mosk’s arm, ‘we’re keeping an eye on you as well.’

_I don’t matter,_ Mosk thought. But he didn’t say it, because Augus was giving him a look. He had an ability to silence Mosk whenever he wanted. Augus was still kind of terrifying, but in a different way to before.

‘If nothing changes in the next week,’ Augus said. ‘I’ll make sure that all three of us can have a talk about it together.’

‘Okay,’ Mosk said.

‘Good,’ Augus replied, his voice gentle. ‘Now, I think the bleeding has mostly stopped. You’re free to do whatever you wish.’

‘Yeah. Um, cool. Thanks.’

Augus looked at him in amusement, green eyes glittering, and Mosk flushed when he realised that Augus was probably the one who should be thanking him. He walked away without another word and pressed his hand to his wrist to try and heal the cut. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened unless he went completely spacey and had _no idea_ what he did to make the healing happen.

He still couldn’t get the Raven Prince’s pendant to wake up again, because he couldn’t make a narrow enough strand of magic.

*

The days blurred into each other after Paelfort. Mosk didn’t pay much attention to their surroundings. He acutely missed Eran’s hand around the rope, pulling him along. Sometimes, tired and bored, he flower-walked and made things grow beneath his feet with every step. Gwyn always looked disapproving when he saw it, but Mosk didn’t care. The world could have some nice flowering footsteps. Otherwise Mosk just felt like some weird fae undertaker, a person who just released dead bodies wherever he went.

He needed to see Davix, and he kept putting it off. He was afraid. Surely if he was taking Davix’s magic, Davix wouldn’t be getting stronger anyway? Maybe he was already dead. Maybe Mosk had already weakened him to the point where Davix was vapour, and he was nearly gone.

As they walked along a narrow path through slender birches, Mosk noticed the many flickers of colour on the bed of blue flowers and realised that he was seeing far more butterflies than was normal. There must have been thousands, many with different coloured wings. He turned back to look at Gwyn, pointing silently. The universal gesture for getting information out of the encyclopedia that was Gwyn ap Nudd.

‘Gevtivar,’ Gwyn said in explanation. ‘We’ll reach it this afternoon. Some of the butterflies are likely to be shifters keeping an eye on us.’

‘Oh,’ Mosk said in amazement, staring back at all the butterflies flitting about.

Gwyn had explained that Gevtivar was a town of mainly insect and arthropod shifters, and that it had a large Unseelie population despite being on the fringes of the Seelie heartlands. Insect and arthropod shifters were generally considered harmless enough that even Seelie fae didn’t mind them, and they could shift into often very small forms in order to disappear. Mosk had only half-paid attention, because Gwyn had explained it around the fire with everyone else, and Mosk was sitting by a tree and trying his hardest to hear the _tree._

But Mosk hadn’t realised that there were shifters who could just fly around like that. He wasn’t used to animal shifters, not proper ones, and it amazed him that fae who could become almost human-sized could fold themselves into such small shapes.

Then again, he supposed, it was no different to dryads turning into giant trees. But dryads couldn’t change back again once they did that. It was permanent.

He looked back to Eran, even made eye contact, but Eran didn’t beckon him, didn’t ask him to come closer, and his eyes were framed with perfect lines. Mosk turned back and felt lost, he couldn’t find it in himself to flower walk anymore.

*

They were welcomed into Gevtivar, a town of sprawling houses that eventually led them to a central village green overwhelmed with flowers. The whole place was lit eerily, the lights weren’t quite magelights, and Mosk wondered if it was the phosphorescence he saw on trees sometimes. It cast green and brown and blue glows everywhere, embedded into cobblestones, collected and hanging from giant spiderweb boluses slung over tree branches.

Only one fae talked to them in the common tongue, and they had long feathered antennae and a strange accent, and wore not only their own moth wings, but many other wings piled on top of each other. Mosk knew the fae had hunted them from clear-winged insect fae, but the fae wasn’t rude or mean to them, instead speaking quietly to Gwyn about how they were hearing more and more about the melting of the ice, the King’s Tree. The fae said that they only had a quiet, humble town to offer with very few refugees, because no one wanted to take refuge in an Unseelie insect-fae town.

Otherwise, the fae talked around them in languages Mosk wasn’t remotely familiar with. Some touched their antennae and talked that way. Others pressed their hands together, or spoke in a sign language that wasn’t formed from the common signs. Some clicked or made small growling or purring noises in conversation. Yet others flashed glowing lights along their bare forearms, and then if other fae were around that had the same ability, many glowing lights would flash and synchronise all at once across the city, creating flares of lights down side streets and alleyways.

Mosk knew they were all talking, even in their hybrid forms – he hadn’t seen a single insect or arthropod shifter in human form yet – because it was easy to see in the smiles on their faces, or the frowns, or the way one might open their mouth and scowl at something someone else had said. But even after his experiences on the Mantissa, he didn’t know languages could be like this.

Gwyn took them to a spindly looking tower that had been built on further over the years, and looked almost like each layer had once been a cocoon made of wood and silk. It had a pointy roof tiled in wood, and none of its windows were even with the others, nor even the same size or shape. Gwyn knocked on the door four times and then opened it, gesturing for everyone to enter.

Mosk realised it was an inn and that Gwyn had stayed here before. Gwyn talked to the fae behind the counter in some kind of hybrid-language. Mosk recognised some of the syllables from the common tongue. The rest of the language was clicking and hand signals.

The fae behind the counter had spikes on their hands and elbows and shoulders, and bright pink antennae, and spikes coming out of the sides of their neck.

They looked pretty.

When Gwyn turned back to them, he seemed satisfied.

‘We have three rooms for the night,’ he said.

‘You’ve been here before,’ Augus said. ‘Sometimes it seems you’ve been everywhere.’

‘We’re on the fringes of the Seelie heartlands. I can assure you I haven’t been everywhere.’ Gwyn smiled softly, he seemed almost pleased. For a brief moment, it looked like maybe he was happy he could be so helpful. ‘I like Gevtivar.’

‘It’s amazing,’ Ash said. ‘I didn’t… I know hardly anything about the fae realm, and I thought I did.’

‘I knew about Gevtivar,’ Julvia said quietly. ‘But only in stories.’

‘Anyway, let’s convene in our room,’ Gwyn said, looking to Augus. ‘I think it’s time to talk about what we’re going to do next.’

Augus’ smile vanished. They all made their way to the left, walking through a curtain of unsticky soft silk. Here, the floors weren’t carpeted with fabric, but silk. The walls were made of uneven pieces of wood pressed against each other like they were glued down. Tiny caterpillars with glowing blue antennae crawled along some of the wooden ridges. White, fat grubs popped their heads out and then hid as they all passed.

‘How do you know these are like…regular bugs and not fae?’ Mosk asked.

‘Sometimes you don’t,’ Gwyn said. ‘But in truth, they’re not likely to be fae. It’s just a town very friendly to all things small and crawling. The earthworms here are the fattest and the happiest. The earwigs have the sharpest pincers. The caterpillars have the thickest, warmest cocoons. Gevtivar has been a safe haven to the small creatures for as long as I can remember. The bee fae have their own town nearby, and they’re more warring, but honestly…none of them are particularly interested in war with any species of fae outside of their own. They have their own civil skirmishes from time to time. Some of the fae co-habiting here do eat each other, after all.’

‘What?’ Eran said. ‘Then how do they live together?’

‘The same way the shark swims alongside the fish in the reef when he isn’t hungry,’ Gwyn said, opening a door and gesturing for everyone to enter first. Mosk saw giant webs everywhere. Glowing blue lights hung from a giant web on the ceiling. Webbing attached wood to the walls and looked like it was anchoring furniture in place. ‘Reef fish know when the shark is hungry, and they flee. Likewise here…’

Gwyn was silent for a time. He stared into the room and rubbed his hand over his stubbled chin.

‘In truth, I don’t quite know how they manage it. But they do. With far more grace than the Seelie and Unseelie Court has shown to each other in some time. It’s not always easy or comfortable, and I did mention there are civil skirmishes, but the Seelie fae here could always leave and they don’t. Gevtivar just…is.’

‘The fairies never left the Dubna,’ Julvia said. ‘Even though we ate them. And when we weren’t hungry, they would come very close to us. Sometimes they even seemed like they liked us, or admired us. We never took more than we needed, and we left them alone when we were done eating. I understand how the fae here can live together.’

‘But it’s easier for you,’ Mosk said. ‘You’re the one who’s eating the other fae. The other fae aren’t doing it back to you.’

‘That’s true,’ Julvia said.

She didn’t offer any excuses or explanations for it. Mosk thought she would, but instead she sat down on a bench and pulled the tips of her pinion feathers towards herself. She ran her fingers through the feathers, one by one, smoothing them more often than she tended her long, white hair.

Mosk sat on a rickety chair by a spindly wooden table. It reminded him of home, even though his home had no webbing. But the lack of metal fixtures around the place, the insistence on everything being made of wood was familiar. He stared at it all and felt strange. Even stranger when Eran didn’t join him at the table, sitting next to Ash on a long bench instead.

Every time Eran did something like that, Mosk felt like he was being stabbed.

‘We’re going to split up,’ Gwyn said grimly. ‘I have given this a lot of thought. I want Mosk, Eran and Julvia to continue up to Arkhel. Ash, Augus and I will go on to Mauerland to spend as little time as possible with the Ratcatcher. They’re both northeast, though different directions, but it will mean we can catch up with you sooner. I want Ash and Augus to be as prepared as possible for whatever is coming, and I fear that even if Mosk’s blood continues to help Augus, it may stop sustaining Ash through the Soulbond.’

‘Fair,’ Ash said. ‘I mean I’m happy to keep kind of…going on as I’ve been going on. But I’m not gonna lie, I’m feeling it. And it’s harder to concentrate.’

‘Yes,’ Gwyn said. ‘It’s not going to get any better unless you get some food. I can’t imagine that the Ratcatcher has allowed anyone to eat any of his humans without setting high or impossible prices for it. He certainly won’t want to entertain any Unseelie looking to eat some of his treasures.’

‘So he won’t want to see us,’ Augus said, staring ahead and frowning. ‘At all.’

‘No.’

‘Why does he have humans?’ Eran said. ‘I don’t…really understand? I thought that wasn’t done anymore. All the humans on this side died out ages ago, right?’

‘Yes, for the most part,’ Gwyn said. ‘But the Ratcatcher stole the equivalent of a township’s worth of children many, many years ago, and has let them breed in his walled estate for generations.’

‘He _stole_ them? But isn’t he- He’s Seelie!’

‘Seelie theft,’ Gwyn said, smiling bitterly. ‘He used his Mage staff – a flute – to sing a plague of rats into the town of Hameln, and the township couldn’t rid themselves of them. Rats in the houses, rats in the cradles biting and eating the infants. The humans tried everything. Finally, the Ratcatcher offered his services and in exchange for gold, sang the rats straight back out again. But they didn’t want to pay him the gold. So he took his payment in another way. He sang the children out instead.’

Mosk’s fingers curled. He hated Mages. He hated the School of the Staff, he hated Master Mages.

_I’m going to destroy that School one day._

‘The Ratcatcher will exact steep debts if he agrees to give Augus or Ash any humans at all,’ Gwyn said, ‘and he will ask for a debt from each one of us who visits. I don’t trust Augus and Ash to get an audience without me there, but nor do I want to see what the Ratcatcher will try and trick out of the rest of you. The Raven Prince additionally warned me against taking the whole party to the Ratcatcher, which makes me think that despite the risks of splitting up, taking Mosk in particular to the Ratcatcher is too dangerous to dare. The Ratcatcher is cruel – he was good friends with my mother – and he is a master at crafting debts you will regret paying, knowing the alternative to not paying is always worse. What he did to Hameln is nothing to what he has done to his fellow fae.’

Augus and Ash looked unhappy and Gwyn didn’t look much better. They were cornered, Mosk realised. They really didn’t have any other choice. Because if Ash collapsed, they’d have to leave him somewhere, or carry him everywhere. Augus’ strength could fail him again. And Mosk could see that both of the waterhorses were needed in their own ways, if only for their compulsions and the fact that the King always seemed calmer when he looked at Augus.

‘What about the life debt I owe Julvia?’ Augus said. ‘I shouldn’t be leaving her. She’s on this journey in part because I agreed I’d protect her.’

‘You will stand a far better chance of protecting her if you feed _properly,_ and the life debt will recognise that,’ Gwyn said softly.

‘I think so too,’ Julvia said. ‘I mean, I also recognise that. Also, Mosk is very powerful now.’

‘Yes,’ Gwyn said. ‘Mosk, you realise that you are the strongest out of the three of you, and you will have their lives in your hands? You will be directly responsible for the welfare of Eran and Julvia. And Julvia is a pacifist, she _cannot_ defend herself. Not at all.’

‘I can ask people to consider not hurting me,’ Julvia interjected. Gwyn looked at her, and Julvia shrugged. Mosk agreed with Gwyn on this, Julvia was completely powerless.

‘We’ll be okay,’ Mosk said. ‘Eran has his fire, and I can stop the ice. It’s never not listened to me, and I don’t think that’s going to stop any time soon. If anyone tries to attack us, I can tie them up in vines or something.’ _Or kill them._ ‘I can do it.’

Eran said nothing, but Mosk was sure he was going to hear something snarky about it later. If Eran talked to him about it at all. Mosk almost wished he would. He wished Eran would yell at him again and just say something, even if it hurt to hear. The silence was unbearable. Not being allowed to do his eyeliner made his fingers feel empty all the time. Worse, it made him feel like he was breaking rules every single day, and if he thought about that too much, his throat felt tight and he wanted to stop walking and place his hands over his face and wail.

Gwyn eventually dismissed everyone except Mosk and Augus. He handed Mosk a hand-drawn map that showed them the path they were to follow and the signs to know that they were on the right track. Then Gwyn met his eyes, unblinking and firm.

‘I mean it, Mosk. Their lives are in your hands. Do not do anything that will put them in danger. Julvia is helpless, and Eran is strong-willed, but he is not a fighter.’

‘He’s a trained warrior,’ Mosk said.

Gwyn didn’t look away, though eventually he blinked. ‘He is trained, but untested. I don’t think Eran has the heart of someone who wants to participate in violence. It’s no bad thing, but it means if bandits or others try and attack you, his reflexes won’t be faster than yours. Consider also that Stertes suppressed his powers and his ability to shift. Eran’s confidence in himself has been given a blow, it might not waken any time soon.’

_Stertes._ Another thing Mosk had gotten wrong.

‘Okay,’ Mosk said. ‘I can protect them.’

‘We’ll be gone for as little time as possible. Ideally, less than a week. But I’m not ruling out that it might be closer to two.’

Mosk nodded.

Then, Gwyn sat down and reached for his pack, handing Mosk items. Potions and ointments for healing. A small vial of blue fluid that kept someone artificially awake when they were exhausted. A very thin piece of cloth that would mop up spills or blood and vanish it away. Mosk could feel the magic in every item he was given.

‘I know Eran has clipaks, but take these just in case,’ Gwyn said, handing a pouch over that clinked with heavy gold. Mosk had to put everything else down beside him. ‘And in case clipaks are changing value too rapidly to be of any use, take these as well.’

A much smaller pouch. Mosk opened it and saw finely faceted gemstones.

It was more wealth than he’d ever held in his entire life. He stared at the large pouch in one hand, the tiny pouch cupped in his other, and wanted to blurt out that he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do any of it. Gwyn was making a mistake, and Mosk was going to get everyone killed.

He jerked when he felt a firm – almost painful – grip on his shoulder. He looked up to deep blue eyes.

‘You can do this, Mosk,’ Gwyn said.

‘Why can’t you just take us to Mauerland and leave us outside the Ratcatcher’s home? So that we can hide nearby?’

‘Because Mauerland is also his. Even entering the city of walls and mazes is entering into a contract with him. Because the roads leading there are his. Because your magic on his roads… He would notice you, Mosk. I fear what a Master Mage like the Ratcatcher would do if he got his hands on you, and I believe the Raven Prince feared it too.’

Mosk nodded. He didn’t want to do anything the Raven Prince had cautioned him against doing. He wanted to live in a way that meant that if he ever saw the Raven Prince again, the Raven Prince might be proud of him.

He wanted _someone_ to be.

‘You’ll be walking a separate path tomorrow morning,’ Gwyn said. ‘We’ll see you soon though, I promise. I can track almost anything and anyone, almost anywhere.’

‘He can,’ Augus said drily from where he lay on the bed, his back against the headboard. ‘It’s very annoying.’

Gwyn smiled without looking away from Mosk’s face. ‘See? It must be true. My rude advisor said so.’

Mosk smiled in spite of himself, and Gwyn gently shook his shoulder. ‘Study the map. Practice your skills and your magic. I’ll see you soon.’

‘Okay,’ Mosk said. ‘Um, Your Majesty.’

‘And _don’t_ call me that,’ Gwyn muttered, shoving Mosk away with a push that might have been gentle by anyone else’s standards, but still made Mosk feel off balance.

Mosk smiled as he walked out of the room, clutching everything Gwyn had given him. And when he peeped through the crack of the door as he closed it, he saw Gwyn was still smiling as well.

He walked across the corridor to the room assigned to Eran and himself. He walked in and saw Eran by the fireplace, crouched close, his hands resting inside of the flames. Eran didn’t look up, he didn’t ask what Mosk was doing when he put everything in Eran’s pack. Mosk looked back to see if Eran was looking at him, but he wasn’t. He didn’t even say hello. He wasn’t even polite. Mosk scowled, he thought Seelie fae were supposed to be _polite._

It amazed him, the fireplace looked like it was made out of a sack of web with an opening in it. The web didn’t catch fire, holding the wood and the coals and funnelled smoke up through the flue.

Mosk walked into the bathroom and closed the door. The space was narrow and cramped, and he sat on a bench under a small, withered light that glowed from the tips of several thin branches that simply poked out of ceiling.

He thought of all the places they’d visited, he liked this one a lot. He might come back to Gevtivar someday. It really did remind him of home. He leaned back against the wall and sighed.

He had two tasks. He didn’t think Eran would interrupt him.

First, he reached into his pocket and placed the piece of shell that the verkhwin had given him beside the bathroom sink made of glazed wood. Beside it, he placed the opal that Eran had given him. He pushed around the precious stone with the oak leaf carved into it with the tip of his finger, wishing he had Eran instead, but this would have to do.

Folding his hands into his lap, he leaned back and took a deep breath, sighing it out. He took another slow breath, imagining a door to the ice in his mind. He knew he should let Eran know what he was doing first, but he didn’t think Eran would care.

Carefully, he stepped through the door and closed it behind him. The ice cavern looked the same as ever, but Mosk couldn’t see Davix at all. Alarm thrummed through him, quickly turning to terror. He spun wildly, then saw a transparent figure prone on the floor and placed his hand on his chest. He walked over swiftly and crouched by Davix’s side. The ghost-Mage looked poorly, he was barely visible, almost like an afterimage more than anything.

It was Mosk’s first confirmation that taking the magic from the ice was hurting Davix, not helping him.

‘You’re in a bad way,’ Mosk said, staring down at him.

A painful grimace, a flicker at the corner of Davix’s lips, something like a smile. His eyes cracked open a sliver.

‘My…malicious, monstrous…friend,’ Davix said. ‘Mosk Manytrees.’

‘Stop saying my name,’ Mosk said.

‘Nay, and, I think…no.’

‘Are you dying?’

‘Yes,’ Davix said. ‘Again.’

‘I don’t think I want you to die. You’re still useful to me,’ Mosk said, feeling far more confident here than he did in any room that currently had Eran in it.

Davix closed his eyes. His chest didn’t rise and fall, but Mosk knew he didn’t need to breathe. After hesitating, he reached out and carefully – making sure his magic was as sealed as possible – touched Davix’s arm. His fingers sank through. It was like pushing his hand into water without substance, there was weight, but no sense of something real.

‘You’re really dying,’ Mosk said, yanking his hand back. He was vigilant, but couldn’t sense any of that drawing, sucking, sneaky magical theft that Davix had tried on him in the past. If anything, Davix felt inert, as though all his magic was focused on keeping him barely visible. ‘I’m never going to let you live and I’m never going to let Olphix resurrect you. What if I told you that I’d unite you both in death? What then?’

‘Good luck…killing my brilliant brother.’

‘Really? After I killed you? Davix, I’ve been getting stronger and stronger, and I killed _you_ at my weakest. You’d both made sure I was at my weakest _._ You’re wishing me luck? Words mean something, don’t they?’

‘I miss him,’ Davix breathed. ‘I miss him so.’

Mosk thought it might be a ruse, but he also needed Davix in this strange ghostly form of his. At least for now. He placed the tip of his finger near Davix, created a strand of magic as small as he could make it. His head panged, but he concentrated and brushed Davix’s ‘body,’ sending a tiny amount of his magic into him. He yanked his thread back even as Davix’s eyes flew open.

‘There,’ Mosk said. ‘How’s that?’

Davix was already gaining more corporeality, though he was still transparent, he was still weak. But he pushed himself up into a sitting position against the ice, he seemed more awake. He looked down at his hands, turning them back and forth.

‘That felt familiar,’ Davix said. ‘Almost fated. Fair one, have you affixed my magic to your magic?’

Mosk said nothing. Davix looked around the cavern. Mosk wondered if he should lend him a bit more magic. Enough to make him substantial. But he decided against it.

‘I want your help,’ Mosk said. ‘I’m training my magic, but there’s things I’m being asked to do that I don’t know how to do. If I agree to unite you with your brother in death, will you help me?’

‘Yes,’ Davix said, eyes rolling to Mosk. ‘I have lingered weeks in this limbo and it is strange, for I have lived so many lifetimes, but these days drag and drag. I cannot tolerate boredom without my brother beside me. I doubt an oath to die with him will do much in this place of dreck.’

‘Oath it anyway,’ Mosk said, staring at him.

Davix smiled as though Mosk had said something impressive.

‘Then, Mosk Manytrees, I vow upon whatever shred of life I have left to me, whatever shred of magic sustains me, to teach you in regards to your magic so that you might unite myself and my brother, Olphix, upon our deathbeds.’

‘Is that really his name?’ Mosk said, squinting at him. ‘That’s not really his name.’

‘They are the names we gave ourselves. It holds as much power as your own does, dim-witted dryad.’

Mosk frowned. It would have to do. It sounded like an oath. It sounded sincere enough. Mosk sat down on the cold permafrost and realised he could probably melt the ice even here if he wanted. But he didn’t want to. He wanted Davix stuck here for as long as possible.

‘Now, how can I help you?’ Davix said, smiling. ‘Will you give me some more of your magic first?’

‘Fuck off,’ Mosk muttered. ‘Maybe next time. You’ll be weaker again next time.’

‘Don’t wait too long, or I might leave you. I have no way to let you know when my life-force is leaking.’

‘There’s two things,’ Mosk said. ‘The first is that I have to make a thin connection of magic to open a charm, but I can’t get it thin enough. I was imagining water at first, but…’

Davix was already shaking his head, smiling in amusement.

_‘What?’_ Mosk snarled.

‘Water is only useful if you are a water fae, you are not. Water can be thin indeed, but not to a fae that doesn’t intuit it innately.’

‘I’ve been using threads,’ Mosk said. ‘But I can’t really get it thinner than like, I don’t know, yarn from a ball of wool.’

‘I admit, that’s a clever compromise,’ Davix said, ‘but not the answer. Think on what I’ve said, you will see the answer yourself.’

‘Tell me,’ Mosk said.

‘I did not oath to tell you, I oathed to _teach_ you.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Mosk said, staring at him in outrage.

‘You have to use this, in one,’ Davix said, tapping his head once. After that his arm dropped, like the effort had exhausted him. If Mosk didn’t know any better, he’d say Davix was enjoying the opportunity to teach and tease at the same time.

He sat there and thought over what Davix had said. That water wasn’t useful because he wasn’t a water fae. That thread was a good compromise, but not the answer. He frowned. If water wasn’t useful because he wasn’t a water fae, then…

‘Roots,’ Mosk said, quickly. He felt so stupid that he hadn’t realised it before, because it was so obvious now that he thought about it. ‘Roots? Like, the really thin ones? They’re thinner than hairs even, sometimes.’

Davix’s expression didn’t change, but he nodded once.

‘But roots absorb things,’ Mosk said. ‘I don’t want to absorb anything.’

‘You’re a dryad,’ Davix said. ‘It is your nature to nurture and to need. But roots can coil and strangle, they can poke and explore, they can push and eat through rock at the right angle. Try that and tell me if it treats you with success. What is the second question?’

‘Healing magic,’ Mosk said. ‘I can do it, but I don’t know how I’m doing it. And I always like, _vanish,_ when I do it. Not literally, but mentally. It’s kind of inconvenient, given everything going on right now. Surely I should be able to tell what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, and stay awake while doing it? Like I get not being awake during dreamwalking, but-’

Davix held up a hand and Mosk went quiet immediately. Davix tilted his head at Mosk, and then his black eyebrows rose.

‘Healing doesn’t harken to you naturally,’ Davix said. ‘It is harcraft.’

‘What’s that?’ Mosk said.

‘I told you.’

‘Magic that doesn’t come naturally,’ Mosk said, and Davix nodded. ‘Does that mean it has to be like this forever? I really want to be able to heal people. I mean, I know I _can,_ but I just… it tires me out, I can’t think, I disappear. I need to be alert. People are depending on me.’

‘All you can do is practice. Harcraft is harcraft. We all have magic we wish to master that we cannot naturally master, therefore, we persist in a perplexing inner world until we piece it together.’

‘But it doesn’t _feel_ like healing.’

‘What is healing supposed to feel like?’ Davix said, eyes closing. ‘When your skin knits together over hours and days, what does that feel like?’

‘Sore, itchy.’

‘No,’ Davix said. ‘These are by-products. What does _healing_ feel like?’

‘Painful?’

‘No,’ Davix said. ‘You’re not like some of the dryads I’ve met. A dryad who has harcraft healing? How humiliating for you. Think about what healing feels like, do not rush to certainty, let yourself understand what it is not to understand. Persist. Practice. Harcraft is harcraft.’

‘Do you have that kind of magic? Or did you?’ Mosk said.

Davix nodded, smiling a little. ‘I like harcraft. Mystery and magic and unknowing and knowing. Certain until you are in that inner space, uncertain. Sure until you float in the dark, unsure. It pays to untether yourself, at times. It pays dividends.’

‘Okay,’ Mosk said. He took a breath and stood, and Davix didn’t even open his eyes to look at him. ‘All right. I’ll come back. You don’t seem like a terrible teacher.’

‘My darling, destructive, devilish dryad,’ Davix said, opening his eyes at last and smiling sweetly. ‘I can be a terrible teacher indeed, but I have no magic with which to make you malleable to me. I was also, once, a terribly good teacher.’

Mosk reached for the door in his mind and stepped towards it. Davix leaned his head back against the ice, his eyes drifting shut like he’d been about to fall asleep the entire time.

*

When Mosk returned, he placed his hand in his pocket and drew out the switchblade that was always there. He turned the warm, white hilt in his hand as he thought over everything Davix had told him. From what it sounded like, innate or natural magic was – at least for Mosk – easy. It was the magic he imagined and his will allowed for a space in which his magic could grow. Harcraft sounded like using any other kind of magic that didn’t come naturally at all. But the Raven Prince had _found_ Mosk’s healing and used it to save Ash’s life.

Did that mean it was innate? Or did it just mean that the Raven Prince found a purer source of Mosk’s magic and bent it to his own will? He wished he could ask.

He looked nervously towards the bathroom door, then back to his forearm. He cut into himself below the bark, and then above it, and then cut himself one more time. He swallowed down noises of pain, he was cutting himself more deeply and more times than he had in the past.

The knife went onto the counter of the bathroom sink. He leaned back against the wall and grimaced at the feel of blood trickling down his skin. He moved his arm away from his pants so that the blood didn’t stain. He should have done this in the shower so the water could wash everything away.

Closing his eyes again, he sought blackness, then his magic. This part was becoming a lot easier even when he was in pain from multiple cuts. It was as though he could step into a dark room inside himself at any point, just by knowing he was going there. It was almost a comfort, it was different to feeling hollow or empty, or bleak and despairing. It was a neutral darkness, made of shadow and stillness.

Beyond it he could sense and see the coalescing light that was his magic. He’d always thought it would look green, but it didn’t. It shone in many colours. It gathered in spinning balls, it arced out in loops of energy and merged with other loops, it spiralled away into nothing, it sent feelers out into the world and then withdrew. It was so alive.

He pressed his fingers to the wound by his hand and remembered what he’d thought of last time. He’d thought of trees. He imagined chlorophyll eating sunlight, leaves dense and green. He imagined trees sinking their roots deep or long and laterally along the soil. He imagined branches turning into full-bodied limbs, growing strong.

For a moment, he felt a pull so deep in his soul that he gasped. An urge to become a tree, to set down his roots right here, to turn into branches and a trunk and leaves. It promised peace. It promised birds in his hair and all manner of creatures among his feet. It promised seeds and fruit, the possibility to share more of himself with the world. The urge was so powerful that for a few minutes he couldn’t move, trying to remember why he wasn’t supposed to be a tree at all.

_Because you won’t come back from that. And you can’t protect them if you do._

He jerked out of the desire to become a tree, then forced his eyes open and groaned when he saw that he’d only healed one of the wounds, but not the other two. Blood was dripping down his arm and it _hurt,_ and all of that for only one wound and he was already exhausted.

‘Harcraft is harcraft,’ Mosk said thickly, his head pounding.

As he closed his eyes and felt each throb in his head, one after the other, he wished for a tavern. He wished for a tavern, and for fae that would fuck him, use him. He didn’t think he’d go into that empty space anymore, but maybe he could get rid of himself for a while. Perhaps one last hurrah before properly setting off on a journey where he was supposed to look after himself and two other people, and didn’t feel like he could do it on his own.

He thought it wouldn’t be so bad if he felt the pain that strangers inflicted on him, if they were cruel. Maybe it would help him focus on what he was supposed to focus on.

Mosk pressed his thumb down to the second wound and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to close his eyes to find that space again, but he couldn’t convince himself to go there again. Maybe dreamwalking and healing back to back wasn’t well-considered.

He giggled to himself. His heartsong was risk. Almost nothing he did was well-considered.

The door opened, and Mosk instantly covered his arm with his palm, eyes opening.

‘You’ve been in here for ages,’ Eran said. Then his eyes widened and Mosk recoiled as Eran marched over to him. ‘Why is there _blood?’_

‘No reason,’ Mosk said. And then Eran had his hand on Mosk’s wrist and drew it away from the wounds, and Mosk pulled away from Eran’s touch. ‘It’s nothing. I’m doing it to train my healing.’

‘You’re _cutting_ yourself?’ Eran said, staring at him incredulously. ‘No light on _that_. Why? Why would you do it this way?’

‘Because it’s better than waiting for someone in the group to get injured,’ Mosk said tiredly. ‘Because I’m not good at healing, it’s not reliable, but we’re going to need a healer.’

‘You’ve been cutting yourself,’ Eran said slowly, as though he still couldn’t believe it. ‘Don’t you see how wrong that is? Do you not care about yourself at all?’

‘I’ve been healing it!’ Mosk shouted abruptly. ‘I’ve been healing the damage! None of you have even noticed, so don’t pretend like it’s a big deal. I cut myself too much tonight, that’s all. I’m tired.’

‘How long have you been doing this for?’ Eran said, staring at him.

‘Well, it’s not any of your business, is it? Because you were the one who shoved me away in the first place! I’m not accountable to you! I don’t have to do what you say and I don’t have to answer your questions. What, are you _worried_ about me? Like you haven’t been for…’

Mosk swallowed the rest of his sentence, it made it too real. It made the distance between them too real.

‘What right do you have to tell me I can’t do this?’ Mosk said finally, his voice thready. ‘What right? You won’t let me draw the lines on your eyes. You don’t care if I’m in bed with you or not. Should I even be keeping this on my wrist, Eran?’

He held up the wrist with the rope on it. Eran stared at it, and Mosk saw his throat bob on a swallow.

‘Don’t take it off,’ Eran said, his voice rough.

‘So, am I just here waiting for you to decide that you… That you…’ _That you want me again?_

Eran leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. He didn’t look like he was enjoying himself, and Mosk wanted to help him so badly. He wished he could place his hands on Eran and go into that strange and exhausting place to heal him, and when he came back, Eran would be like he used to be again. But he couldn’t. Eran had been too hurt. Even Mosk could see that.

He hated that he was sitting there yelling, being accusing, feeling lost and alone and wretched. Someone else would just wait until Eran was able to talk about it. Someone else would be patient. Someone else would probably make sure Eran had enough food and water and give him blankets and be kind to him.

_I am such an ugly person,_ Mosk thought, the words scathing, cutting through him deeper than any knife did.

‘It’s okay,’ Mosk said finally, clearing his throat. ‘It’s fine. I made a mistake with the healing tonight. But it’s part of my magical training, and I _can_ heal things. I can’t really stay conscious or aware when I do it and that’s obviously not useful. I’m just trying to get better at it. I’m fine, Eran. I’ll keep wearing the rope, I promise.’

Maybe he would look for a tavern. He could turn invisible and find one, then come back and no one would know any better. If Eran and Julvia were safe in an inn or something, Mosk could find someone to use him. Maybe he could even find a few people.

‘I miss you,’ Mosk said, hating himself for the words, pleading and pathetic.

Eran winced. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, his amber eyes lingered first on the rope around Mosk’s wrist and then on the bloodied cuts on his other hand.

‘If I could just draw the lines again,’ Mosk said. ‘Please. Just those. Or just one eye, maybe. Or even just one line. I don’t have to do them all. If I could…’

‘I want you to stop cutting yourself,’ Eran said. ‘I know you don’t get why that’s not okay, and that you don’t understand why you should have told us, but I want you to stop.’

‘I’m not going to stop,’ Mosk said. The desperation inside of him was quashed by his own determination, he stared at Eran steadily. He was angry, too, that Eran kept ignoring him every time he asked for anything like mercy. ‘Honestly, you have no right to ask me. You won’t even _talk_ to me.’

‘Stop doing it,’ Eran said, his voice firming.

‘No,’ Mosk said. ‘You should go back to bed, Eran. You need sleep, and if it’s my job to protect you and Julvia, I don’t want to be protecting fae who are neglecting themselves, since that suddenly matters _so_ much to you. You’ll just be making my job harder, if you don’t get any sleep.’

Eran’s amber eyes flared, a muscle in his jaw jumped. He spun away and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

Mosk was cold. He stood up and winced at how exhausted he was. He should follow his own advice. He wouldn’t be able to heal the other two wounds tonight.

The bathroom cupboard held a stack of towels that were all made out of a strange, rough webbing. He wrapped them around himself and sat back on the bathroom bench. He couldn’t bring himself to go out there while Eran might still be awake. He’d wait until Eran fell asleep.

It was lonely, the bathroom was cold, and he thought of his family home. It was small, it encouraged each of them to live close to one another, to share space like a grove of related trees. He missed his brothers talking to each other. He missed Chaley reaching out and petting the back of his hand. He thought of his Mamatree, distilling saps into syrups over a magical heat that wouldn’t hurt the wood, turning them into confectionary that melted sweet and thick over their tongues.

When he stayed in the Manytrees house, he slept in a bunk above his brothers, right by the roof. He’d stare up at whorls of grain and trace his fingers over them, seeing faces and animals and patterns. He listened to the canopy beyond the windows, he listened to the roots beneath their home, and he listened to the sleeping breaths of his family. Often his oldest sister, Ela, whose tree was chokecherry, would sit in the central circle and embroider cushions or the edges of blankets. Sometimes they’d wake to a new spray of leaves laid down in delicate thread art.

He missed the sound of the thread being pulled through the fabric rhythmically, back and forth, the sound of Ela switching spools.

In the end, ashamed of his own loneliness but unable to bear it, he crept out of the bathroom and could tell Eran was still awake. He silently got into the bed after stripping down, and curled onto his side, facing the other way. He could feel Eran’s warmth, feel the heat that radiated from him, and he squeezed his eyes shut and hated that he took comfort from it. But it was better than the coldness of the bathroom, and he fell asleep to the sound of Eran’s breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'The Ratcatcher of Hameln':
> 
> "The bartender looked up at him, and then other fae looked over to him, all mostly men. And Mosk stared at all of them and no longer saw faceless people to use him, but individuals who all had different personalities. Some were drinking, others were sharing a meal with each other. 
> 
> This was the point where he’d walk up to the bar and ask if there was a room he could get for free, if he could pay with his body, if there was a way that could happen. 
> 
> He walked up to the bar and heard the bartender ask him what he was drinking. 
> 
> ‘Um,’ Mosk said."


	8. The Ratcatcher of Hameln

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're hitting an arc which may end up being my favourite in the series, with this chapter, and I'm so looking forward to everyone reading it. In the meantime I hope everyone's doing okay!

_Mosk_

*

Within four days of travelling with Eran and Julvia, Mosk felt like he was going out of his mind with agitation. He twitched at every sound in the distance. He stared suspiciously at the occasional fae they passed. His muscles tensed along his back and forearms, under his thighs and behind his knees, like he was ready to run or fight. He hated it, but it wasn’t like Eran walked with his hand on the hilt of his kh’anzar, and Julvia couldn’t fight at all. She was a pacifist, like he once was.

Each night, Eran took a watch for seven hours, letting Mosk steal wretched, furtive bits of sleep on his own where he had bad dreams and woke aching and alone.

They skirted around the small villages to avoid potential unrest. Mosk stopped the ice where he saw it, his fingers numbing, his palms sore. But his hands were getting longer breaks between unfreezing the plague. As they travelled northeast, the land became colder and the ice didn’t seem to like it as much. Mosk was sure it had something like a rudimentary personality. It wanted heat and it wanted to be recognised. It didn’t want cold, it didn’t want to meet more ice.

Mosk destroyed it and felt like he was placing his hand over an animal that could be resuscitated, smothering its life-force. He drew that energy into himself, feeling something familiar at the sensation of Davix’s magic and his old heartsong melded together.

Mosk tapped the trees for sap when they had time. He went into the pack that Eran carried and took out the tapping tools. He knocked on the trunks to find which ones wouldn’t be too stingy with their sap. It was a bad time of year to get much sap out of them anyway, but he wanted to make sure he didn’t run out of food. He didn’t trust Eran to haggle to get sap on his behalf at a market, and he didn’t know if they’d find any markets in the first place.

On the sixth night, they stayed on the outskirts of a larger town. All the houses had uniform domed roofs made out of enamel and glass. Mosk had no idea how they didn’t shatter during storms, but he felt magic in the town and thought maybe it was protected. As the sun set, he heard voices and saw the small silhouettes of fae heading into what had to be an inn.

They vanished into it, and Mosk stared ahead at the inn, pressing his lips together.

Just one night. Just one night, while Eran took watch. He could steal away. Even for a couple of hours. No one in an inn was going to object to a free fuck, no one ever did. Even the establishments where they seemed wary or untrusting at first, there was always one willing, and where there was one, the rest soon followed.

Eventually Julvia fell asleep after talking with Eran for several hours. They talked almost every night, about all kinds of things. Mosk wished he didn’t have to listen to them getting along, sharing stories about their families, about their grief, talking about Julvia’s love for Ondine, but never Eran’s alleged love for Mosk. When Eran took his watch, Julvia even kept him company for a couple of hours every evening.

On the second night Mosk snapped at them for keeping him awake, but even when they stayed silent, he lay there and wanted to curl up and hum his own grief roughly to himself to fill the empty space around him.

This whole journey was becoming the loneliest thing he’d ever done. He wished, regularly, that Davix and Olphix had killed him.

For a long time after they’d had him, he’d wished that. For a year he’d wished that. And then Eran had taught him something different.

Absurdly, it hurt worse the second time around to find himself in this place of despair again. It hurt like spokes of rusting, flaking, splintering wood in his chest. It hurt like he’d swallowed poison. It hurt like having his magic stripped away by those Mages had hurt.

After Julvia fell asleep, Mosk sat and stared down at the town. The lights were still on in the inn. He rolled to his feet and looked at Eran who was sitting on a boulder, his amber eyes scanning their environment.

Eran had his fire. It would only be for a couple of hours. 

Mosk didn’t want to risk turning invisible and just abandoning them. He had to say something.

He’d always known Eran would get tired of him, but having it happen still felt like a wound all the same. And alongside that pain, he tried to remind himself that Eran was suffering. But why did his suffering have to look like this? Why did it have to feel like this?

‘I’m going to the inn for a couple of hours,’ Mosk said, his voice surprisingly even. ‘I’m going to get some information about the path to Arkhel, and I want to find out how far away we are. I can’t tell if we’re making good time. If I’m not back in about two hours, come get me.’

Eran nodded, and Mosk stood there for a few seconds and then turned, walking towards the road. As soon as his foot hit the path of mosaic glass and tiles, he heard footsteps running towards him.

He whirled, the tension in him that he’d been carrying coiling tight and springing out of him. Two wooden tentacles shot out of the trees nearby, ready to do whatever he wanted.

Eran skidded up to him, staring at the tentacles in shock. Mosk dismissed them immediately, tying his magic back up tightly. He didn’t want anyone else knowing what he could do, in case they thought of a way to stop him before they attacked. He kept imagining that people constantly wanted to hurt them and he hated it.

‘What’s wrong?’ Mosk said.

Eran’s eyes were still wide. He looked at both of the trees, then he looked at Mosk.

‘Are you really going to ask for information? Or are you going to do what you used to do?’

Mosk wanted to lie so badly. He did. But he also wanted Eran to tell him not to go, he wanted Eran to pretend that he cared. He wanted Eran to tell him to stay back and he needed – so badly – for Eran to tell him to lie down next to him for a time.

‘It’s only for two hours,’ Mosk said. ‘And it’s not like before. It’s really just to… It doesn’t really matter what it’s for. It helps.’

Mosk wondered if Eran would yell. He wondered if Eran would issue orders without anything other than coldness to back him up. Mosk realised he’d seen this version of Eran before, back when Mosk had been manacled in iron and Eran’s grief was a cold, detached anger.

‘Maybe I’ve lost the right to ask you not to go,’ Eran said heavily, ‘but I don’t want you to go.’

‘I’m not strong like you,’ Mosk said, staring at the ground, eyes closing. ‘I can’t just endure whatever this is. I can’t wait and pretend I don’t need something else to help me. I’m weak. I’m weak, Eran. It’s only for two hours. Please.’

Eran was silent, and Mosk looked down to the inn. It was less than a ten minute walk away, he was sure. Eran wasn’t saying anything.

‘I know you’re going through something,’ Mosk said, staring at the inn. ‘But none of this will stop and wait for you. I wish it would. I wish we could be back in Summervale forever, or by the Seelie Court even, and you could rest while Gwyn figured stuff out. I don’t know what’s so bad about me right now, and I kind of even get that maybe it’s not about that either, but I need to be able to stay focused during the day, and I’m kind of…’ He had to take a breath to stop his voice from breaking. ‘I kind of need…’

_I want to not think for two hours. I want your arms around me. I even want those stupid ropes. I want you telling me that you have me. I want you to squeeze the rope around my wrist._

‘Okay,’ Eran said. ‘If it’s just for two hours.’

Mosk wanted to scream. What happened to it being bad for him? What happened to Eran thinking it was like rape?

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, his voice shaking. ‘Yeah, of course. It’s only for two hours. Probably less. It’s not like before, after all.’

Eran nodded, and then after a minute he walked back to where Julvia was sleeping. Mosk stared after him, his hands fisted, trembling. He could _tell_ Eran wasn’t even really engaging properly. His mind was elsewhere.

He turned and headed down towards the inn.

The night air was cold and damp, biting into him. The town itself was picturesque. All the towns they’d passed were neat and often beautiful, even though they were no longer officially in the Seelie heartlands where all the wealth was. Towns were pretty, they all mostly looked the same, they all had an inn, at least one. There were always taverns, always drunk fae, always places to get fucked.

Mosk hesitated before opening the door with its stained glass, then walked into the inn.

The bartender looked up at him, and then other fae looked over to him, all mostly men. And Mosk stared at all of them and no longer saw faceless people to use him, but individuals who all had different personalities. Some were drinking, others were sharing a meal with each other.

This was the point where he’d walk up to the bar and ask if there was a room he could get for free, if he could pay with his body, if there was a way that could happen.

He walked up to the bar and heard the bartender ask him what he was drinking.

‘Um,’ Mosk said.

He thought of Eran alone, keeping watch. Eran, who didn’t want to kill anyone. Knowing Mosk’s luck, if Eran got attacked, it’d be now.

‘Actually,’ Mosk said, actively resisting to urge to just drop to the ground and curl up into a ball, ‘I’m sorry, do you know how far Arkhel is by foot?’

‘Aye,’ the bartender said. ‘I’ll tell you for the price of a beer.’

Mosk sighed, nodded, and reached into his pocket, drawing out some coins. He didn’t take the clipaks with him, he knew better than that. He put two smaller coins on the counter, and the bartender – with the wildest black sideburns Mosk had seen in his life – drew him a beer from the keg without even making the head overly foamy.

Mosk could drink beer. It was basically fermented, diluted plant matter. He pulled the glass to himself and stared at it. The glass was enamelled, like the roofs. They must have been known for it. Gwyn had written the name of the town on the map in perfect calligraphy. _Ariol-Arten._

He drank the beer and eventually eased onto a stool. He could tell the others were curious about him. He was the only one with green hair in the place, it made him feel embarrassed. He hated his hair. Even his siblings had nicer shades of green, like very dark green, or very pale all over. Mosk’s was two-toned and weird.

‘It’s good,’ Mosk said, even though he could barely taste it.

‘You paid for good,’ the bartender said. ‘Arkhel’s about three more days on foot, but the roads get a bit more dangerous from here on out. There’s been bandits, and the forests off the paths are rough. We’re the last good village before it becomes a lawless land.’

Three days away. They weren’t making good time at all. Mosk supposed he hadn’t been setting a fast pace. He’d never walked that quickly, and Julvia needed to rest every afternoon. Gwyn, Augus and Ash might even get there before them.

‘If I had to choose between bandits on the roads, or the forests off the roads, which-’

‘ _Don’t_ stray off the roads or the roadsides,’ the bartender said, his eyes glittering with fervour. Mosk swallowed.

‘Have the roads always been like that?’ _Did Gwyn want us to be in this much danger?_

‘No, son, they haven’t,’ the bartender said, then turned and poured another pint of beer and slid it along the bar to the person who’d gestured for it. ‘The ice has changed everything. I imagine that’s why you’ve come this way. A lot have been travelling up to Arkhel, because it’s the largest city safe from the ice, but still close to the Seelie Court. People take advantage. The roads were much safer once, but the forests up that way have always been dangerous. Oswal-Tay is up that way.’

‘I’m a dryad, though.’

‘There’s things in them forests that eat trees and dryads,’ the bartender said. ‘Mayhaps you’ve only known nicer forests.’

Mosk frowned at his beer, then drank the rest of it. He wasn’t afraid of a dark or evil forest. He was an Aur dryad, not a Seelie dryad. The trees would listen to him no matter where he was. They’d listen even if they were dead.

He almost asked then and there if he could find someone to fuck him for the night. Almost propositioned the bartender. No one’s face mattered once Mosk was bent over a table or a stool and being ploughed from behind. But his stomach churned and everyone here was real, a real person. He couldn’t find the same foggy haze that he used to have where nothing and no one mattered.

And if he couldn’t vanish, it’d hurt. It’d really hurt. They made him bleed. One time, he was fucked so much, he remembered he couldn’t stop throwing up. He was made weak and dehydrated, he thought they were killing him and he hoped they would.

They didn’t.

‘Aye now, it’s not so bad,’ the bartender said, misreading the expression on Mosk’s face. ‘Bandits are less likely to attack someone alone than someone in a caravan or carrying goods. You don’t look like you’re travelling rich. And I hear tell that the Dual-King is around these parts, and that knowledge alone might scare ‘em off. Some’ll no doubt be stupid enough to try and attack him instead.’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

‘Me either,’ the bartender said, ‘given how sneaksy that Dual-King is.’

‘Do you believe he can save us?’ Mosk said, finishing the beer and putting more coins down for another. The bartender filled up his mug, and Mosk drank easily, the bitterness of alcohol never bothered him. Sap was bitter as it was.

‘Truly, I don’t know,’ the bartender said, twirling one of his monstrous black sideburns. ‘They say he’s got fae with him that’ll help, and he did put the ol’ Nightingale back in the netherworlds. Don’t much like him as a person, but he does get the job done, so I think he’s got a better chance than anyone else. Helps to know he’s at least working on it. I never much cared about the human realm, but now that no Unseelie can get there to hunt humans when they need to, it’s an issue. It’s a big issue. The ice, too.’

‘Feels like the end of the world sometimes,’ Mosk muttered, finishing the rest of the beer in one long draught.

‘Aye, it does. But what are we to do? We’re living in the story now, so we’d best survive it as we can, so we can tell it to others one day.’

Mosk nodded, pushing the enamelled glass towards the bartender and stepping away from the bar.

‘Thanks for your help,’ Mosk said.

‘Make sure you survive your own story, young one,’ the bartender said.

‘I’ll try,’ Mosk said, smiling bitterly.

He left the inn, then stood there by the front door feeling defeated. He hadn’t done what he set out to do, he still felt fractious and trapped, he was still on edge. Every shadow held a threat, every glint of light was reflecting off an imagined knife. He forced himself to take a deep breath, but even his lungs were constrained, banded off. At the top of every inhale, he could feel how he shook inside.

He walked back to Eran, who watched him approach with wide eyes. Eran looked him over, from top to bottom, as though looking for signs that Mosk had been freshly fucked.

‘I’m going to bed,’ Mosk said.

‘That was less than two hours.’

‘I guess it was.’

‘Mosk,’ Eran said, his voice twisting. ‘I…’

‘It’s fine,’ Mosk said. ‘It’s fine, Eran. I just need some sleep.’

But he lay there in the darkness, listening to every sound, every unusual call or cracking piece of wood. Later, hours later, he heard patrons in the distance leaving the inn and laughing amongst themselves, and he wished he’d let them hollow him out.

*

The bartender had given him good information. The next day, they passed bandits twice. The first time, Mosk growing tentacles from the trees all around them scared the bandits off and they fled. But that just made Mosk paranoid they were going to come back, that they’d return with an ambush. That afternoon, a new pack of bandits let them by, but stared at them with avaricious eyes, then laughed to themselves as they passed.

Mosk almost wished he could just kill them outright so he didn’t have to worry about being attacked by them later. He couldn’t help but think of the Raven Prince cautioning him, questioning him, and he couldn’t help but imagine the expression on Eran’s face if he did something like that.

Eran hadn’t been the same around him since Mosk had killed Stertes, and it was that simple. Maybe murdering Stertes had created a kind of corruption in Mosk that Eran would never be able to handle.

That night they camped on the roadside. Mosk grew a stand of thick shrubs that allowed them to see the road, but concealed them from view. Eran didn’t make a fire.

Mosk kept thinking about Gwyn and Augus and Ash. He moved his finger around in the soil absently, wondering if he could use his dreamwalking to check in on them. After all, Olphix had dreamwalked to visit him in Oengus’ tower. Surely Mosk could dreamwalk to the King? Or maybe Augus? Augus had drunk his blood, so maybe there was a physical link he could follow that connected them both.

‘I’m going to be working on my magic tonight,’ Mosk said, though he didn’t remove the pendant around his neck as he usually did. ‘But I’ll be right here. I might be a bit foggy though.’

‘Are you going to visit Davix?’ Eran asked.

Mosk shook his head. ‘I want to check on Gwyn and the others. I don’t know if I can do that, so maybe this’ll only last five minutes. But I think the technique’s the same.’

Eran nodded, didn’t tell him not to do it. Mosk wondered if Eran had just given up on trying to stop him.

Mosk lay down, closing his eyes. It was no different to Eran taking his watch like normal. It wouldn’t take long. His visits to Davix never took long. He just wanted to see where they were, that was all.

It took some time to work out how to do it. At first, he tried to imagine where they were and visit that place, but every time he opened the new door he’d made, nothing happened. He encountered only swirling emptiness. Maybe he could dreamwalk to Davix because he had the connection to _Davix._ Perhaps he needed to follow a connection to a person?

He thought of Augus, at first, and then decided on Gwyn. After all, they’d been training nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. He’d had Gwyn’s hands on him, helping him back up again. He knew Gwyn’s voice and the way he breathed and the way he moved.

Lost in the meanderings of his magic, he followed a thread that felt more Gwyn-like than the rest. He was thrust into someone else’s awareness, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer looking through his own eyes.

A very upper class room. He faced a gentleman on a finely made couch, a finely tiled floor. The room smelled of some musty perfume and there were flowers in a huge, ceramic vase. Mosk didn’t rest in his own body, but someone’s who was much larger, taller.

Mosk realised he wasn’t _dreamwalking,_ not if he was seeing through Gwyn’s eyes. He knew it was Gwyn. Knew because Gwyn felt Augus and Ash on either side of him. Knew because he felt a sudden sense of physical power and assuredness that was so profound Mosk thought he’d never felt so rooted down in his entire life, even communing with some of the steadiest trees like he used to. There was magic here too, glittering and flashing like sparks or spinning like a galaxy. It was incoherent, flickering in and out of view, and Mosk could sense a tangled mess of it beneath him, like someone had tried to stuff a planet into a chest and locked it with the meanest keys.

He could tell Gwyn didn’t know he was there. Gwyn’s wariness was directed at the man in front of him.

Which meant they were still in Hameln. Which meant they’d been delayed. Mosk felt a small wave of relief in response.

‘You don’t think it’s unreasonable to be placing toll points at _every_ road in Mauerland, given how many there are?’ Gwyn said.

Mosk heard and felt his voice, and stared at the man in front of him. The Ratcatcher of Hameln. He wore a Master Mage’s motley of neatly stitched diamonds in orange, blue and yellow. He had a very pale face, and sharp blue eyes like razors. His black moustache was waxed and curled up, and his lips were thin and shrewd. He looked like a Mage who didn’t miss much at all, and he looked cruel, Mosk realised. He looked cruel all the time, unlike Davix and Olphix, who always seemed calm – even slightly amused – at rest.

He was wiry, he sat unusually straight, and he held a beautifully carved but unpainted wooden flute. Mosk knew that was his staff. He could feel the Ratcatcher’s magic even as he tethered himself within Gwyn. He wondered if that meant Gwyn could feel the magic too.

‘But of course,’ the Ratcatcher said smoothly. ‘Do you not understand? Why, I’ve had every low, baseborn, common Unseelie that hunts humans, trying to destroy my beautiful city and its beautiful people. My humans needed protection on my estate, but beyond that, even Mauerland needed my protection. Those fae are vulnerable to some of the most evil, sick and cruel creatures in our realm.’

The Ratcatcher made a point of looking at Augus, then Ash.

‘Do you want to see them?’ the Ratcatcher said, a tiny smile at the corner of his sharp lips. ‘Would you like to see my treasures? The prizes that are mine and mine alone?’

‘You know why we’re here,’ Gwyn said grimly. ‘You know what will happen if you let Augus and Ash view them.’

‘They will turn into mad, feral _beasts._ The masks will lift and we will see the treachery beneath. Goodness, they do look so weak and meek now, don’t they? Humbly you all come to beg me for food. But these humans aren’t _food,_ they’re _mine,_ and I _own_ them. I’ve allowed no Unseelie to feed from them yet, what makes you think I need anything from the Unseelie King?’

‘Has news not reached you then?’ Gwyn said. ‘Have you not heard that Albion himself offered me the crown?’

The Ratcatcher’s face twitched unpleasantly, and he tapped his flute slowly against the side of his calf.

‘You know what we face,’ Gwyn said. ‘You’re not stupid, in fact you’re uncommonly clever. You make sport of every fae you meet, likely out of boredom. You keep your humans like cows, naked in the fields, providing them only the most rudimentary shelter and food, knowing they don’t understand any existence except the one you gave them. You don’t even let them have language.’

‘I am their god, Gwyn ap Nudd,’ the Ratcatcher said, showing his teeth in a grin. ‘And they were my gold in lieu of gold. I may treat them how I wish. And yes, I suppose I _do_ know what you face. But I want no part of it. I’ll not interfere with Olphix and Davix.’

‘Davix is dead.’

‘So you _say.’_

Gwyn said nothing, but Mosk felt it, the moment Gwyn’s glamour ratcheted up. It didn’t seem conscious at all, and it pounded through whatever awareness Mosk had attached to the Unseelie King. From the inside of Gwyn’s being, the glamour didn’t feel unusually rousing at all. If anything, it was _angry._ Mosk frowned, withdrawing from the outward scene Gwyn was witnessing, and stared at the inner space he occupied.

Gwyn was angry. He was still steady, still sure, but there was a background thread of rage that ran deep like an eternally flowing river. Gwyn seemed calm, but there was outrage in all of him.

Mosk found a space that was black and formless as he surveyed his surroundings. He stared at it, leaned towards it and then jerked when he realised it felt exactly like what he sucked out of the ice. Not magic, but a _heartsong._

Except…

There was no heartsong there.

That wasn’t right. Mosk realised he hadn’t found Gwyn’s heartsong at all. He’d probably just found something he didn’t understand.

Uneasily, he turned his attention back to what Gwyn was seeing and felt queasy at the shift in scenery. Gwyn was walking somewhere with the Ratcatcher and they were talking, but Mosk couldn’t hear them properly anymore. Did Gwyn know Mosk was there? Was he being blocked? He stared at the blur of scenery they passed, what looked like a palace around them. But no, it was the Ratcatcher’s villa. Staff bowed and hurried quickly away whenever the Ratcatcher passed them.

And then Gwyn was standing on a huge white balcony, and in front of him sprawled a land of green meadows and perfect trees and naked humans – including some children – clustered together, some in the shade, others pulling mushrooms up from the ground and eating them or handing them to each other. In the distance, a huge green fence ringed the property, hedges grown impossibly tall, and Mosk knew there was no way for these humans to escape.

Gwyn didn’t feel pity for the humans, Mosk could tell he felt only certainty that he needed Augus and Ash to feed.

‘You see they are in the very best of health,’ the Ratcatcher said. ‘So what exactly will you give me, to encourage me to part with my well-kept treasures? For you know I never leave my estate if I can help it, you know how much I care for these animals, and you _know_ how I feel about letting your monsters feed. What will you give me?’

Gwyn took a deep breath. The Ratcatcher stared easily at Gwyn, and then his eyes widened.

He squinted and looked _through_ Gwyn. Fear curdled as Mosk realised that he’d been seen, he had nowhere to hide. He shrank himself, tried to vanish, took himself away from what he was seeing and hearing, but he still felt the Ratcatcher’s presence nearby.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Get out. Get out. You know they’re alive, you know they’re fine, you don’t have to be here to watch the debts or whatever. GO._

But Mosk couldn’t unhook himself. He found the anchor point and tried to wrench himself away, and his fear turned to terror as he realised he could feel the Ratcatcher’s presence even here. _How?_

And how was Gwyn not aware of it?

A sudden pressure fell upon him, and he panicked as he was boxed up into a tiny cube, his senses cut off and making him small. He tried to get free, but like this, he couldn’t even access his magic properly. It was back in his body, and his body seemed impossible to reach.

He tried to get Gwyn’s attention, but he didn’t even know if he was still anchored to Gwyn. That was when he truly panicked, shocked at how easily the Ratcatcher had noticed him, shocked at how swiftly he’d acted. And Mosk was captured and trapped. The last time Mages had trapped him, it hadn’t ended well.

The scream he let loose reverberated through his whole self. But he was boxed up and no one heard it.

*

At once, he was set free, his formless self spilling into being in a room, no longer tethered to Gwyn at all. The Ratcatcher was there, staring at him, spinning his flute on the tips of his fingers.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘The King had a flea. And I rid him of it. I should charge him a fee, shouldn’t I? And _look_ at you. They say that Davix is dead, but for a moment I couldn’t help but wonder if you were he. Your magic has some of his. Are you the one who killed him? They say it was the work of a pissant dryad, and here I have one in my clutches.’

‘Where’s Gwyn?’ Mosk said, looking around wildly. But the room was nondescript. It might as well have been a room in an inn. It was just a bed and rugs and richness, but nothing to help him. He tried to leave, but the Ratcatcher’s magic pressed in all around. It wasn’t recognisable like Olphix’s or Davix’s magic, it was new, and it was invasive and sticky.

‘Hm? The King? Who you call so casually? He’s with his two horses, making sure they get fed. And you? Did he ask you to eavesdrop for him? Someone so untrained? My, all this raw magic and you are _useless._ Do you truly not know how to fight me?’

‘Please,’ Mosk said. ‘I just wanted to check that Gwyn was okay. We’re meant to meet up with him in Arkhel soon. I was worried.’

‘But I am a Seelie Master Mage, you have _nothing_ to worry about,’ the Ratcatcher said, twitching his Mage’s motley so that the diamonds flashed him. Mosk felt nauseous. He realised something in those diamonds was keeping him in place. The Ratcatcher didn’t even have to use active magic to manage it. ‘Granted, it did take him a long time to arrive, my toll-keepers don’t see the difference between general Unseelie riff-raff and the King. Because you’re all the same, you know.’

Mosk stared around the room. He tried reaching for his magic. The Ratcatcher laughed. Casually, he lifted his flute and blew a short, beautiful melody into it. So pretty it almost masked Mosk’s abrupt scream of pain. He felt spikes slicing through whatever connections he tried to make with his own magic. Abruptly, he sank to the floor.

_‘Please,’_ Mosk said.

‘What will you give me?’ the Ratcatcher said. ‘You have _trespassed_ upon my property and broken with old law etiquette. You have not announced yourself, nor given me your name. You have tried to conceal yourself, magic-user to magic-user, and not stated your intentions, and again, broken with the etiquette. Do you wish me to go on? You are a rude, contemptible piece of shit, and you are weak within my walls. Do you not know? Do you not know how weak you are, in a Master Mage’s _home?’_

Mosk remembered with despair, that time Olphix had visited him in Oengus’ tower. Mosk had been unconscious, but he knew the story well, because Oengus had saved him. Even _Olphix_ had been weak in Oengus’ tower, and Oengus had successfully sent him away and barred him from revisiting.

‘You don’t,’ the Ratcatcher said, laughing. ‘So now, you owe me a favour, I should think. I have no obligation to release you without damage, or even to release you at all. And I am ever, ever so good at keeping what I desire close to me.’

The panic grew. Eran and Julvia were dependent on him. They needed him. And he’d done something so stupid. He hadn’t been careful, the risk was _stupid._ The wave of hatred he felt for himself was sudden and sickening.

‘At least you look pretty in your misery,’ the Ratcatcher said. ‘And meanwhile, this magic of yours, this magic of _his._ How fascinating. Let me take a closer look, would you? You owe me that much.’

The Ratcatcher blew a single fine note on his flute, and Mosk felt himself walled off from even seeing the Ratcatcher’s _home._ He was left only with himself and an endless blackness. Distantly he heard another note followed by a shocking agony, he felt a rift in himself like a cleaver. The Ratcatcher’s magic, trying to split Mosk’s magic in half. He would have gasped, would have screamed.

He couldn’t do either.

More notes played in the background. Mosk had no idea torture could sound so melodic, so sweet.

He reacted, a survival instinct coming to life and turning him to hardly conscious action.

There was an anchor point, and that anchor point was his body. The Ratcatcher had tried to mask it from him, but it was still there. Mosk felt his energy whirl and latch onto it, and all at once he smelled smoke and char and choked, but it was his body, his energy, his magic. And then he turned and grabbed onto the melody the same way he’d grabbed onto Davix’s arm over a year ago.

He screamed in agony, even as he felt the Ratcatcher’s surprise, his curiosity. Mosk yanked the melody straight from the flute and the tune became ugly and wretched. Suddenly Mosk held the Ratcatcher’s bit of magic alive in his hand. It was graceful and beautiful, and he knew the Ratcatcher was trying to separate Davix’s magic from his. But Mosk had been cursed with Olphix’s magic already, as far as he was concerned it all belonged to him, and he’d do whatever he liked with it.

He shoved the writhing mass of magic down into the anchor point and the smell of smoke became sharper. He could suddenly see again – both the room the Ratcatcher was in as he stared at Mosk in surprise, and the fire all around him – and he panicked.

He didn’t have time for parting words, he didn’t have time to do anything except flee.

At once, he slammed himself back into his body, left the Ratcatcher’s magic writhing where he’d left it, and coughed heavily.

The smoke was _everywhere._ Scalding heat. The glow of a fire. And Eran shook Mosk frantically.

‘ _Wake up!_ We have to go! Mosk! _Mosk!_ We have to _go.’_

‘Wh-? _What?’_

But the fire. The fire. It was a forest, and it was on fire. Mosk’s panic folded in on itself and exploded outwards and he suddenly couldn’t hear Eran, couldn’t focus on protecting them, it was just _the fire, right there._

He rolled onto his hands and feet and pushed upwards and ran in the opposite direction, blindly, crashing through the undergrowth away from the fire. Away from Mages. Away from their horrendous, horrid magic.

Eran yelled at him, but Mosk sprinted so fast that branches whipped him. He did what he could never do back when Olphix burned his family to death. He _ran._

He was aware of Eran catching up with him. Julvia nearby. They were following. There were voices yelling in the distance. And as he ran, he knew they should turn back. They were heading deeper into the forest, it was the wrong direction, but he couldn’t bring himself to go back to that smell.

He was wrong. Eran didn’t smell or taste like a forest on fire. In fact, Mosk couldn’t believe he ever thought the two were comparable. Not now, not as he took great, heaving breaths to keep up with his sprinting and had to smell the forest burning every time he inhaled. He made a gurgling sound, put on a burst of speed, trusting that the others were following.

The ground was uneven under his feet, sloping downwards, rocky. He didn’t have night vision like some other types of fae, he couldn’t see where he was going, and the moon wasn’t close to full. There was almost no light. At one point his leg buckled beneath him because a rock turned and he rolled his ankle.

He kept running, pain flashing up through his shin. He could heal it later. He just needed to get _away._

‘Mosk!’ Eran shouted, out of breath. ‘Slow down!’

Another twenty steps, crashing through thickets, and the forest floor gave out completely. He was staring down at the distant canopies of trees as he plummeted through the air. Julvia burst out after him, shrieking, great wings flapping. Then Eran _screamed._

Mosk reacted instinctively. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the shell and then dropped it – already wild with moss – towards the forest floor. He shoved both his hands towards it, even as he dropped feet first, and threw all his magic into growing as much moss as possible. Only seconds later, he fell through the treetops, snapping thin branches and twigs, feeling like he was being lashed by trees. He crashed into moss, breathless, hard enough to knock the wind out of himself, but not hard enough that he broke anything.

Eran dropped onto the moss beside him two seconds later.

Mosk lay there, wheezing, and couldn’t smell smoke anymore. Eran struggled to catch his breath beside him. A minute later, Julvia dropped through the canopy and landed on the moss. At least she could fly.

‘I think I broke my wrist,’ she said.

_Shit,_ Mosk thought.

‘I can try healing it in a bit,’ he said. ‘Eran? Are you okay?’

‘Y-yes. Yes, I’m not hurt.’

‘What…what happened?’ Mosk said, staring up at the dense branches above them. He could smell something sweet and rotten in the back of his nose, but didn’t yet have the energy to push himself up. He shuddered, remembering the Ratcatcher’s magic around him.

‘Bandits,’ Eran said. ‘We tried to rouse you, but we couldn’t. They had a swordswoman, Mosk, and I knew we’d be dead if I tried to fight her with my kh’anzar. I couldn’t think of what else to do. I’m sorry.’

‘S’fine. Shouldn’t’ve…done what I did anyway. We’re all alive. Did you remember the pack?’

‘Yes,’ Eran said. ‘It’s right here.’

Mosk forced himself into a sitting position on shaking arms, and the first thing he saw was a tree covered in grotesque ornamentation. As he squinted at it, the shadows resolved into the eye sockets of skulls, bones with bits of greying flesh on them dangling from ribbons on every giant branch. Strange, reddish ribbons. No…

_Ligaments._

Just like the forest where they’d been ambushed by the miskatin. The exact kind of forest they weren’t meant to end up in at all.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Mosk said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Oswal-Tay'
> 
> ‘Run,’ one of the creatures whispered sibilantly, so close that Mosk jerked sideways. Eran called fire to his hand, and by its light they saw a spindly blue misshapen fae lurking in the shadows of a tree, uncommonly tall, joints looking broken, or like there were too many joints in each of its limbs. It had pale lambent eyes and tufts of poorly kept fur. Its steps twitched and jolted unnaturally, and as it came closer, Mosk saw more crowding behind it.
> 
> The monsters all looked at each other as one, then looked at Mosk, Eran and Julvia. 
> 
> The fae before them grinned with sharp, jagged teeth, and clacked its claws. Two wicked claws grew from every finger, each longer than its entire hand and razor sharp. 
> 
> Mosk instinctively reached for his magic to grow the trees into a barrier. The fae lunged. There was no time to protect everyone. 
> 
> _‘RUN!’_ he shouted.


	9. Oswal-Tay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun fact, this is actually a location we've visited before, in _Game Theory._ Folks might remember it from the time Gwyn was underfae and nearly killed in this forest. So y'know...everything's...fine!

_Mosk_

*

They didn’t sleep. Instead, they moved further away from the cliff they’d fallen from. Mosk had to tear metres deep into the plush moss in order to find the shell that the verkhwin had given him. He dug it out of the wet, dense greenness with effort, rubbing the shell clean. He put it safely in his pocket. He closed up most of his magic, though he left it a little open so he could hear and sense their surroundings better.

Mosk didn’t trust remaining close to the cliff and the people who had attacked them, but he also didn’t trust their location. The gaunt, leafless tree covered in body parts and strange bone-and-muscle dolls spooked him. He’d never seen anything like that in the Aur forest.

They moved slowly beyond the grotesque tree and only spoke to each other in hushed whispers. When morning came, they huddled together, cold and breathing in the fetid air. The sunlight didn’t penetrate the canopy properly, the forest only turned from black to a greyish gloom, a permanent twilight.

Strange sounds and screams penetrated the cloying air around them. Some closer than others. Each time Mosk flinched and looked around wildly. He never saw anything that might be making the noises.

He pulled out the map and shrank into himself as he squinted hard to read it.

‘Um,’ he said. ‘It’s…a forest called Oswal-Tay. I don’t think Gwyn ever wanted us to come here. Look.’

Eran took the map from him and stared at the little skulls Gwyn had drawn around the forest, along with the words: _Don’t go here, under any circumstances,_ penned perfectly under the name of the forest.

‘Instead of drawing skulls, he could have told us what to do if we ever got stuck here,’ Eran said, sighing.

‘I’ll pass that message onto him if we don’t die,’ Mosk said. He was too tired to make his words sound biting. He folded the map again and stared at the ground blankly. He’d had no time to think about his encounter with the Ratcatcher, or the exhaustion that had wriggled into him and taken root. ‘Anyway. Gwyn, Augus and Ash are all alive and safe, at least for now. So that’s something.’

Julvia shivered finely behind them, her wrist still broken. She had her back to their backs, her wings offering insulation for all of them. But Mosk could feel her trembling.

‘Okay,’ Mosk said. ‘I’m going to blank out when I do the healing, so like… But we have no choice. Breaks don’t heal properly for a few days even with Court status. And Julvia’s sicker than us, right?’

‘I…’ Julvia made a small sound. ‘I would like to say that I’ll be fine, but this has been the most strenuous thing I’ve done in some time. This whole journey, and certainly the last few days.’

Mosk stood and looked around, hating the idea of having to fold his awareness into his magic to do this, especially here in this forest. He could feel the malcontent, the malice, it had soaked into the trees, the ground, the rotten pieces of flesh that sat, lumpen and pustulous, beside trees. There was Unseelie, and then there was _Unseelie._

He knelt before Julvia and reached for her wrist. It had swollen black already, and Mosk wondered if something about her health meant she didn’t recover from things as fast as the rest of them. He carefully placed one hand beneath the break in her bone, and another over the top of her forearm, where the break seemed the worst. She watched him closely with her opaque black eyes, and this close, he could see the little overlapping feathers in the shadows at her chest. This close, she wasn’t as intimidating as she usually was.

‘It shouldn’t hurt,’ Mosk said. It had never hurt him when he healed himself. But he didn’t know what it would be like for her. ‘But if you think it’s going wrong, you should be able to push me away. I’ve been practicing, I promise.’

‘I trust you, Mosk Manytrees,’ she said.

‘You shouldn’t,’ he said, staring down at the black bruising. He thought it would look even worse under direct sunlight. It looked terrible in the gloom. ‘I’ve never properly healed anyone else on my own before.’

He closed his eyes and sank into his magic. He could feel how bruised it was after whatever the Ratcatcher had done to him. Where there was normally activity and movement, everything was sluggish. He looked around the internal landscape of his magic and shifted his hands carefully on Julvia’s arm. He had enough awareness left for that before he lost himself entirely.

After that, he was only dimly aware of evoking pictures of trees growing, trees healing around their wounds, reaching for sunlight. He thought of Davix talking about harcraft. He could feel the way he was bleeding out his magic to do whatever it was he was doing.

_What does healing feel like?_

Mosk didn’t know. Was healing supposed to feel like anything? Why was that the question Davix had asked him? Was Davix trying to teach him something?

Mosk came back to himself slowly, groggily, and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the lack of bruising, Julvia’s wrist slender and whole in his hands.

‘It worked,’ he said thickly. ‘Did it take long?’

‘About half an hour,’ Eran said, his voice muted. ‘But I think we’re in danger here.’

Mosk snapped back into that horrible, anxious awareness that had been growing over the past few days. He looked around twitchily and thought he saw glowing eyes in the distance.

‘If we head north, we’ll still come to Arkhel,’ Mosk said. ‘And I won’t…I won’t do what I did last night again. It’s too dangerous. I didn’t realise.’

‘Were you hurt?’ Julvia said. ‘It sounded like you were being hurt.’

Mosk felt disconcerted to have both of them looking at him and after a while he shrugged. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t being hurt anymore.

‘Come on,’ Mosk said. ‘We can’t afford to lose more time.’

*

It became apparent they were being tracked or stalked. Whenever they walked forwards, something walked behind them. The hairs stood on end all over Mosk’s body, his bark felt taut. Even Eran and Julvia felt it, Eran looking around him in every direction, and Julvia tense, her wings pulled tight to her body.

They walked; the creatures kept walking behind them.

Mosk’s heart pounded so hard he felt sick with it. He looked behind them frequently. He thought about growing trees in a way that would create a barrier or a fence, but he worried that these trees already answered to other masters. Nothing about this forest wanted anything to do with him. It was a bone-deep knowledge prickling through him.

Instinctively, Mosk sped up, and the steps sped up behind them, followed by a cackling, hissing, eldritch laughter. And then more laughter from more creatures. Not just one, but many.

_‘Run,’_ one of the creatures whispered sibilantly, so close that Mosk jerked sideways. Eran called fire to his hand, and by its light they saw a spindly blue misshapen fae lurking in the shadows of a tree, uncommonly tall, joints looking broken, or like there were too many joints in each of its limbs. It had pale lambent eyes and tufts of poorly kept fur. Its steps twitched and jolted unnaturally, and as it came closer, Mosk saw more crowding behind it.

The monsters all looked at each other as one, then looked at Mosk, Eran and Julvia.

The creature before them grinned with sharp, jagged teeth, and clacked its claws. Two wicked claws grew from every finger, each longer than its entire hand and razor sharp.

Mosk instinctively reached for his magic to grow the trees into a barrier. The fae lunged. There was no time to protect everyone.

_‘RUN!’_ he shouted.

He grabbed Julvia’s hand, because she couldn’t run as fast as them with the drag her wings created. They ran as fast as they could. Mosk’s legs burned, he was still bruised from falling from the cliff. Eran panted with a wheezing, high fear behind his breaths, and even Julvia seemed too terrified to do anything more than run as fast as she could, flapping her giant wings to put on ungainly bursts of speed.

The creatures came after them, crashing through the forest. As they sprinted, the forest grew darker, the shadows growing, lengthening, looming over them. Mosk stumbled over rocks twice, then had to focus on the ground, watching every one of his frantic steps, glancing up only to make sure he wasn’t about to run into trees.

Eran shot two fireballs behind him, but Mosk never smelled smoke or even the forest catching alight. The malevolent fae behind them never slowed down.

Mosk could track how close they were by their high pitched cackling. He whimpered, they were gaining.

His limbs were burning and painful, he’d have to try and use his magic again to save them, but it didn’t feel right since the Ratcatcher. Even so, as he sprinted he reached within for his magic. It was innate, wasn’t it? He should be able to use it.

A source of glowing light appeared suddenly in front of them, and the monsters behind them shrieked. Their footsteps slowed, then halted. When Mosk looked behind him, still running, they were bolting in the opposite direction.

He lurched towards the source of light and then – knees weak with terror – skidded to a stop before his feet touched the circle of brightly lit soil and rock. He threw his arms out, and Julvia and Eran pulled themselves up before slamming into him.

‘What is it?’ Eran cried.

Mosk pointed up at the black iron chandelier hanging from the tree, casting an unnatural, glowing pool of light. In the distance they saw many other chandeliers hanging from the trees, each creating their own sections of light, one after the other, deep into the distance.

‘Miskatin,’ Mosk said, dropping to his knees in despair.

Weakly, he pressed his hand to a tree to give himself some stability. The others were catching their breath. Mosk looked around and felt hollow. How was he going to protect Eran and Julvia _here?_ He could barely protect Eran from one miskatin, let alone many, and he’d only managed it with a trick that probably wouldn’t work again. They were losing time. The shadows pressed in all around them, and if those monster-things were that scared of the miskatin, Mosk knew it meant bad things for all of them.

‘By Kabiri,’ Eran breathed, staring up at the chandelier. He snapped his fingers, a sharp sound in the forest. ‘No light on that either.’

‘If we don’t touch the light, we should be okay,’ Mosk said. ‘We can skirt around it. But they’ll be around, they’re probably hunting if the lights are on.’

‘It’s not the same one as last time,’ Eran said.

‘No,’ Mosk said. But as Eran sighed in relief, he shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s better. The other miskatin I saw in the first miskatin’s memory aren’t… They’re worse. And they hunt together. We’ll have to be careful. Also my, um, my magic isn’t working very well.’

‘Because of healing me?’ Julvia said.

‘No,’ Mosk said, keeping his voice as hushed as they did. ‘Something the Ratcatcher did has… I dunno. It feels injured.’

‘What?’ Eran said, staring at him with wide eyes. ‘What happened with the Ratcatcher?’

‘Nothing,’ Mosk said quickly. ‘He just- He just found me, that’s all. That’s all.’

He placed a hand over his forehead. Despite the horror of being here, he was grateful that Gwyn hadn’t made them all go visit the Ratcatcher. While he hadn’t wanted to split up, he couldn’t imagine any debt the Ratcatcher wanted him to pay would mean anything good.

‘This forest also doesn’t like my magic,’ Mosk said, his voice low. ‘It has a lot of magic in it already. I can’t…access the plants here like normal. I can see why Gwyn didn’t want us to come here.’

Eran was silent, surveying their surroundings. Julvia wrapped her wings around herself, staring at the light on the ground, then up at the iron chandelier.

‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ Mosk said. ‘Staying near the miskatin territory to avoid the other things, or getting away from here. But we have to keep moving. We can’t stay here. Just…don’t touch the light. Either of you.’

They nodded, and after five more minutes of catching their breath, set off once more.

*

An hour later, they saw iron lanterns hanging among the chandeliers. And then iron candles. Iron bowls carrying an eerie grey light within them. Each new container of light was a horrible confirmation that a group of miskatin lived here and hunted together. He wondered if these were the miskatin that had birthed and then pack-raped the other one because they’d decided it was defective.

Mosk would much rather have taken his chance with the other miskatin, than the ones he’d seen in that memory.

Avoiding the light became harder. As the number of iron light sources grew, the shadows were blacker, almost opaque. It became tempting to stray closer to the light. Mosk had no night vision, and Eran didn’t dare make fire. As the day went on, the forest of Oswal-Tay stayed gloomy.

They heard strange noises, cries and odd screams, sometimes from close by, sometimes far in the distance. They heard movements and running and footsteps and they tensed every time, ready to bolt.

Mosk became so jumpy he felt sick with it. He was ready to scream. He needed to be out of the situation he was in so badly, but there was no end to it.

He remembered Gwyn telling him that Eran’s and Julvia’s lives were in his hands.

He walked ahead and felt too paralysed with fear to be doing this.

*

Two hours passed. Mosk hissed when a huge pale blue owl landed silently on a tree nearby. It stared at them with black, empty eyes. It was the size of a child. Its dark beak slowly opened, then closed, then opened again, exposing the black abyss of its mouth. Mosk expected it to cry or hoot, but it stared at them and kept opening its beak, then silently closing it.

They all stared. Mosk wanted to cling to Eran, but he kept his hands clenched into fists. He kept his sore magic ready just in case he had to use it.

The owl’s face suddenly transformed into a child’s, ghoulish and rotting. The black empty eyes had been gouged out. Its mouth opened, revealing sharp, blackened teeth, and the child’s face _screamed_ at them.

Then the child’s face became an owl’s once more, and it took off and flew away.

Mosk stumbled backwards, a small sound of horror coming out of his mouth. Eran had a hand up to his chest. Even Julvia looked like she was shaking.

‘Well,’ Mosk said, taking a shuddering breath. ‘I guess we know where those screaming sounds are coming from.’

They kept walking. Mosk rubbed his forearms, trying to will the goosebumps away.

*

That night, they huddled close to each other. Eran drew blankets out of his pack for all of them, and Mosk hated that the blankets from the Mantissa with their patterns and colours of fire were here in this horrid place. He wished they’d found their way out by now. He kept thinking of the bartender’s face, talking about how difficult the path was, and that was if they stayed on the _road._

Sometime near midnight – Mosk guessed, anyway, it wasn’t like he could see the sky – Julvia started sniffling to herself. She placed her hand over her face, her voice choking. Eran walked over to her and crouched by her side. He must have asked her what was wrong because she said:

‘I just miss her so much.’

Rage spiked hard and thorny in Mosk’s whole body.

‘Oh, _shut up,’_ he hissed venomously. They both stared at him in shock, Eran’s amber eyes so bright among the shadows. But Mosk stared only at Julvia. ‘At least someone loves you. So _shut up.’_

Mosk stood and walked a couple of metres away, staring into the blackness. He could see glowing eyes all around them, different shapes and sizes. But that seemed to be the norm. There were animals and fae in here, and it seemed like everything was either hiding, or watching and waiting to attack. Mosk folded his arms. His entire body felt tight and horrible. He wanted to pull all his nerves out of himself, he didn’t want to feel anything anymore.

The idea of flower walking here made him to want to bark out vicious laughter. No one would flower walk here.

Eran didn’t come over to him. After a moment he started talking to Julvia again in hushed tones.

_That’s right,_ Mosk thought. _I know you don’t love me anymore._

He was getting tired of Eran doing this to him. And beneath that, he was upset with himself for not being more patient, upset with himself because he knew how awful he was to Eran, because he knew how patient Eran had been with him. He just wanted to offer the same capacity for faith and loyalty.

He didn’t have it.

All he was in that moment was fear and the sense that he had to make sure they were safe, even if he didn’t want anything to do with either of them.

*

The next day they continued heading north. The chandeliers and the lanterns and candles and bowls of light didn’t stop. The territory of the miskatin was huge. Though Mosk never saw them, he knew they were around. They never found any paths, but the forest wasn’t dense with undergrowth, so it was easy enough to travel, even though Mosk rolled his ankle a couple of times.

At one point, when they stopped to rest their legs and stretch, Julvia walked up to him.

‘May I talk to you?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Leave me alone.’

She stood there for another minute or so, and then her wings opened a little, closed, and she moved away. He felt sullen and sulky, but he didn’t want to hear her pull him up for how he’d talked to her the day before.

Ten minutes later they started walking again. Mosk wanted to scream. Instead, he paid attention to his magic. It was feeling better. Still sluggish and bruised, but not like before. So resting it really did help. He didn’t understand his magic at all, and in this forest, he didn’t dare risk working on the pendant or visiting Davix.

Later, Eran walked close to him. ‘I remember back when we were captured by that first miskatin, and I risked my life to save you, and you came back to save me anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said, feeling disconnected and cold.

‘Will you be able to do that technique of scaring them with their own memories again?’

‘No,’ Mosk said. ‘I don’t think these miskatin are like that other one. That other one…the one we met, it was softer.’

_‘Softer,’_ Eran said, in horror.

‘They said it’d been made wrong. That was its worst memory, you know, a bunch of miskatin – maybe these ones – said it was defective, and sent it away from the hive by pack-raping it. That was its worst memory.’

‘I remember you talking to the miskatin about it,’ Eran said. Then he made a sound in the back of his throat. ‘Mosk, is that what you _remembered?_ Like, do you feel it, when you remember?’

‘Go away, Eran,’ Mosk said.

‘Listen, I’m… Mosk, I haven’t been treating you well for a while now. And I know that… Ah, by all the fires, this isn’t easy. Would you want to do the eyeliner again tomorrow?’

The hope in Mosk’s chest hurt. It was sharp, roiling through him. He’d spent so much time trying to convince himself that he didn’t need to do it anymore. He was resentful, too. He was like a dog that could be called back after being shoved away, he could feel the way he wanted to crawl to Eran. He felt his own weakness, hated it.

In the end, Mosk said nothing and hated that too. Eran dropped a step behind him about thirty minutes later, and Mosk’s whole body felt wrong. He wanted to be out of this forest. He didn’t like being responsible for anyone.

*

In the morning he still knelt by Eran’s side like an idiot, holding the tin of eyeliner in his hand and feeling shaky. He could barely see, but the gloom was lightening in the forest. Eran woke and saw him there, his breath catching.

‘Oh, Mosk,’ he said, like he was sad.

Mosk’s fingers clenched on the tin. Instead, he silently drew out the stick and tried not to think about how Eran had sent him away the day he’d been training with Gwyn in the morning, or all those days after where Eran had taken the tin from his fingers.

His hand was shaking so much that even bracing his little finger on Eran’s cheek didn’t help. And Eran caught Mosk’s trembling hand in both of his and held it still. Mosk sat there and felt like a failure, even as he breathed the decaying scent of the forest into his nose and mouth. His hand and wrist constantly brushed Eran’s palms and fingertips, because Mosk couldn’t control the shaking. He hadn’t eaten properly in days. He refused to tap any of the trees here, he had a bad feeling about the sap. Even though he was Unseelie, he knew he didn’t belong here.

‘Mosk,’ Eran said, sounding tortured.

‘I can do it,’ Mosk said. ‘I can.’

‘Shh,’ he said, his hands tightening on Mosk’s. ‘Just…’

Mosk stared into the darkness and couldn’t seem to make himself calm down. It was an agony inside of him. He was meant to be drawing the eyeliner. That was why he’d knelt there. He _wanted_ to. But his hand wouldn’t cooperate.

‘Mosk, I’m so sorry,’ Eran said roughly.

‘No, it’s fine. You don’t need to be. You’ve been through a lot.’

‘Mosk, you deserve so much better than me.’

‘Stop it,’ Mosk said, even as Eran’s hands curled around his and held his hand still. Eran’s warm thumb pressed into Mosk’s palm and rested there, pushing heat into his skin. Mosk twitched when he realised Eran wasn’t relying on his normal body temperature, he was actually gently warming Mosk’s hand with his magic. ‘I don’t. Of the two of us, I’m the terrible one.’

‘I really don’t think that’s true,’ Eran said, his voice breaking. ‘I’m a coward. I know I need to talk about what happened. What’s going on. I can’t make myself. At least I’m not smelling the sea anymore. Well. Not as much. But this place isn’t much better.’

‘You’re not a coward,’ Mosk said. Eran had been smelling the sea?

‘No, but I am,’ Eran said. ‘I’ve chosen… I’ve chosen to do a lot of things that hurt you, because the alternative was too hard. Mosk, what did the Ratcatcher do to your magic?’

‘Nothing,’ Mosk said, realising his hand was shaking less. He shifted and carefully twisted his hand out of Eran’s grip, and rested his little finger against Eran’s cheek while Eran stared at him. Mosk was able to draw the lines, even though he was sure they were uneven, he could still use the light of Eran’s eyes to see by. It felt like completing a broken circle between them, and when he was done, his shoulders sagged.

‘Here,’ Eran said, taking the stick of black from Mosk’s hand.

‘I did it badly,’ Mosk said.

‘No,’ Eran said. He leaned towards Mosk and placed a hand beneath Mosk’s chin, tilting his head up. ‘Hold still?’

‘Wh-what?’ Mosk breathed, staring at him.

Surely… Surely he wasn’t about to…

‘It’s not much. It’s not enough, I know. Sometimes I think I’m going to have to apologise to you forever. No wonder you think I don’t love you. No wonder.’

The eyeliner rested black and creamy against the corner of his eye, and Mosk froze and tried not to even blink. Eran drew the first line slowly but smoothly, with no hesitations.

‘Close your eyes,’ Eran said softly.

Mosk held his breath and closed his eyes, and Eran drew the line above as well. Mosk could feel it on his skin. The thing that made Eran who he was. The thing that made him an ambaros, as well as an afrit. It was on Mosk’s eyes too.

‘Eran, can you do this? It’s not against the rules?’

‘It’s not,’ Eran said. ‘And I’ve broken enough rules between us, haven’t I? Meanwhile, you didn’t even take the rope off your wrist.’

‘Don’t be nice,’ Mosk said. ‘Just…’

‘Shh,’ Eran said, finishing off the eyeliner on Mosk’s eyes. Mosk was aware of how it felt, black and strange and different. A thing that belonged to Eran, now on his face as well. Mosk’s hands fidgeted, he didn’t know what to do. ‘Did the Ratcatcher hurt you?’

‘He didn’t like that I was spying,’ Mosk said, looking around into the shadows. ‘I just wanted to see if Gwyn and the rest were safe. That was all. We’re not making good time. And this place is going to slow us down even more. I was worried that Gwyn and Ash and Augus were already at Arkhel, or wondering about where we were. But they’ve had their own delays. They can’t rescue us. We’re on our own. At least for now.’

‘I’ve been smelling the ocean since we left the Mantissa,’ Eran admitted, his breath hitching. ‘I can’t talk any more about it. But I haven’t been able to think straight. I don’t know why.’

‘You do,’ Mosk said, feeling sad and tired. ‘You know why.’

‘I’ve never pushed people away like this before.’

‘Well, it’s just me, not Julvia,’ Mosk said, feeling bitter. ‘So you still have people.’

Eran was silent for a long time. He reached out, not for the rope around Mosk’s arm, but to his bare wrist, resting his fingers on Mosk’s skin. The touch still made Mosk feel strange, but it didn’t remind him of Olphix and Davix in the same way anymore. After all, Eran’s fingers were warmer, thicker, they felt different.

‘You deserve better,’ Eran said. ‘And I can’t promise to be better right now. But Mosk, you’re right to be angry at me. It’s okay to be angry at me.’

‘You’re going through something.’

‘I am, and it’s still okay to be angry at me. There were plenty of times when I knew you were going through something, and I’d still get angry at you. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Anger is telling you that you deserve better.’

Mosk lifted his other hand and placed it over Eran’s. The truth was, he was tired of feeling anything at all. He had very little room inside of himself except for terror and flashes of anger and bitterness that scared him. The night they’d spent together in Augus’ and Gwyn’s room, wrapped up in blankets, Eran holding him so tightly, it seemed like a dream. A teasing glimpse of what they could have if Mosk wasn’t so broken and awful, if he hadn’t broken the rules in the first place.

‘I broke a rule,’ Mosk said.

‘Did you?’ Eran said. Mosk looked at him, confused. ‘Mosk, did you really? I asked you to do the eyeliner in the mornings, and spend the night with me. I never told you that you _had_ to be in my bed when I woke up, or that you had to do the eyeliner as soon as I woke up. I treated you like those were the rules, but they were never that specific. I was… I was jealous.’

Mosk had nothing to say. He thought he should feel relieved, but he felt heavy and disappointed. Eran got along with everyone, and Mosk tried so hard not to yell at him for it, and then Eran was allowed to act like that just because Gwyn was interested in Mosk – interested in using him as a weapon – for five seconds? Mosk hated seeing Eran getting along with Gwyn and Ash and Julvia and Augus. Eran always made friends. He always left Mosk behind.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Eran said.

‘We have to get moving,’ Mosk said, reluctantly moving his hands away from Eran’s. ‘It’s not safe here.’

Eran looked like he wanted to say more, but Mosk couldn’t do this. Not now. He still heard sounds around them. Eran wasn’t attuned to it in the same way. How did he not realise the danger they were all in?

As Mosk stood and looked towards the section of the forest glowing with intermittent light sources from hunting miskatin, Eran put the blankets back and shouldered the pack. Mosk looked up at the canopy, looked around the forest. They had to get moving.

As they walked, he felt the eyeliner on his eyes, and some wild, loose, crazed thing ricocheting inside of him slowed, quietened, and then rested.

*

Even though Mosk stayed on high alert, even though he felt like his skin was blistering off his whole body with how on edge he was, the attack still came.

First, the sound of projectiles whizzing through the air. Eran screamed in agony, dropping to the ground, huge, nasty spears sticking out of him. One in his leg, one in his torso, another in his shoulder. Mosk saw immediately that the spears looked like they were made of bone, or had bone stuck to them. Eran writhed and screamed, eyes rolling back in his head from the pain of it.

At least fifteen miskatin approached them. They made threatening, rattling sounds in their throats. Their shaggy fur had bones and bits of gore tied into it. They stunk of rot, but so did the whole forest. Their teeth and claws were what terrified Mosk, he remembered the way the first miskatin had slid its claw easily into Eran’s arm, testing him for meat.

Mosk was too stunned to know what to do. He sensed Julvia backing away and wanted to tell her it was too dangerous. There was nothing to stop them from being ambushed from behind.

Eran twisted and whimpered on the floor beside him. He needed healing.

They couldn’t run.

Like a pendulum of stone pulled so far back he couldn’t see it, his outrage swung and smashed into him so hard that his magic split open. He _pulled_ at the reluctant, hostile forest, forcing it to obey him before he realised he was doing it. He heard himself roaring like an animal at the miskatin, stepping towards them. His fear melted and turned to a vicious, poisonous liquid inside of him. He forced the trees and the weird grasses and everything to listen to him, even as it resisted _._

He didn’t care. It was a forest and he was an Aur dryad, and Eran was screaming and screaming in agony.

He reached for the miskatins’ worst memories instinctively, even as he knew it would be useless. Their deepest fears were nothing more than fearing their own hunger. A terror that would be satisfied if they captured Mosk, Eran and Julvia. They were already too far away from their fears to be threatened by them. They weren’t going to be afraid of food talking back.

Roots had no choice but to respond to the magic he dumped onto them, his hands moving as he walked towards the miskatin with strong, sure steps. His magic needed decisive intent, it needed his rage, and he had enough of it to destroy the whole forest.

He raised his arms and clenched his fingers together in a single, sharp movement. Hundreds of roots sprang from the earth and stabbed into the miskatin he could see. They skewered all of them in multiple places, tore through their spines and their faces, sprayed the stench of their strange blood all over the ground and the trees.

At once, all the lights in the forest winked off and they were in complete darkness.

Mosk stared around them wildly, but he couldn’t see _anything._ Eran couldn’t make a fire.

He sucked down a strangled breath, his body wrenched with pain. He shoved his magic into the forest with violence and trees around him cracked and split, unable to resist him. With the resentful, cursed energy of the place, he grew a wooden shield all around them, impregnable and tough. It curved down into the ground and made a bowl of protective roots beneath them, unseen, so no one could bury up and hurt them. It curved up around them, hitting branches in the canopy. Black leaves fell all around them.

Mosk couldn’t see any of it, he could only feel the shape of it. He made a dome as surely as Augus had made his dome when they were on the beach, waiting for Ondine to save them.

But Augus wasn’t here.

Mosk knew that the wood had no choice but to listen to him. The dome sealed itself with thick, interlocking branches. The leaves falling sounded like a soft shower. But there, the dead miskatin were outside of the dome, and those horrible creatures from before couldn’t get to them.

He fell to one knee, then the other, then crawled to Eran’s side, listening to the sound of his tortured breathing, his cries.

‘Eran,’ Mosk said. ‘ _Eran_.’

‘What did you do?’ Julvia said, in a small voice.

‘It’s a barrier,’ Mosk said, his voice sounding strange in his mouth, like it wasn’t his own voice at all. ‘I have to heal him. I can’t stay aware while I heal him, so the wood will have to do.’

‘What if they burn it?’ she said.

Mosk stared ahead blankly. ‘Then we’ll die. Be quiet, I have to heal him.’

‘Can I do anything?’

‘No,’ Mosk said. ‘Just… I’ll probably pass out, so watch over him once I’m done.’

He could feel his magic torn open inside of him, so raw and tormented that he couldn’t begin to think about closing it up again. If the Ratcatcher had injured him, Mosk had taken a knife to his insides when he forced the forest to listen to him.

‘Wait,’ he said weakly. He reached under Eran for the pack and felt the heat and wetness of Eran’s blood. And Eran wasn’t making those noises anymore. He’d fallen unconscious. ‘Gwyn gave me healing potions. Wait.’

He rummaged blindly in the dark, hand bumping into things, and found the vials that Gwyn had given him. He felt the smallest one, which was to keep someone awake, and then he felt the larger ones and grabbed them with rubbery fingers. He dropped them on the floor beside him, then grasped the spear in Eran’s side.

When he pulled, it resisted him. Eran didn’t even wake up to scream.

‘No, gods, _come on,’_ Mosk begged, yanking the spear harder. A horrible ripping sensation, and it came free with a wet, sucking noise. He reached automatically for the next spear, the one in his leg even more resistant, and Mosk could feel how it was caught on _bone._

He keened in the back of his mouth as he wiggled it free, and Eran didn’t regain consciousness, but he made frantic, garbled mewling noises in the back of his mouth, one after the other.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Mosk sobbed, grabbing the final spear and then letting go to rub his hands roughly on his clothing, because they were so sweaty with horror and blood. The final spear was the easiest to remove, and Mosk flung it away. ‘I’m sorry, Eran.’

And then he lifted the vial of healing potion and worked off the cork, blindly reaching for Eran’s face until he could open his mouth. But Eran was too unconscious to swallow. Mosk made a strangled sound of frustration, because if he was too unconscious to drink, Mosk had no choice but to heal him until he woke.

‘Julvia,’ he said, ‘make sure he drinks these when he wakes up. Both of them. I don’t care. I won’t be able to heal him properly. Can you see them? There’s vials by my side.’

‘I can see them,’ Julvia said.

Good,’ Mosk said. ‘Good. Make sure he’s okay.’

‘Mosk- I…’

‘Just make sure he’s okay!’ Mosk shouted.

He slammed his hands onto the wound in Eran’s torso and gagged as he felt churned up meat, bits of bone and squelchy, sloppy bits of his insides. He closed his eyes and he tried to force himself into his magic. He saw only chaos.

_Please, please, please,_ he begged himself, vaguely aware that he was saying the words aloud. He threw himself deeper into the chaos and felt how torn up his own magic was. It wasn’t that he struggled to grow things, it was that this forest had _fought_ him, the land had resisted him wholeheartedly. There was something here that had left its magic in the forest, and Mosk had smashed it with a magical fist and broken himself in the process.

But his magic was still here. Disconnected loops. Half-arcs. Bits of fizzling brightness.

He pulled it all towards him and he forced himself to think – of all things – of Chaley. Beautiful, perfect Chaley. Chaley who didn’t hurt anything or anyone and smiled at him and loved him so brightly that she was even better than spring sunlight on deciduous bare branches. She made him flower when she looked at him, she turned him into new buds filled with hope. She was the best person he’d ever known in his life, and then he’d met Eran.

And he saw her before him, smiling at him with soft reassurance and promise. He clung to that as he forced his magic to repair itself enough to do this.

What did healing feel like?

It felt like Chaley. It felt like loving someone’s flesh enough to want it whole, always. It felt like a lifetime of grief, knowing that she was gone, knowing there were some things that could never be healed.

It was like unlocking a box. Everything inside was broken and rusted, but it was still enough that he could do what he meant to do.

He shredded himself to heal Eran, unaware of his surroundings, unaware of everything except for the feeling of Chaley’s smile and the knowledge that this was what his healing looked like, even if he couldn’t stay conscious or present to use it.

_‘Chaley,’_ he moaned, missing her so badly that he knew it was a wound that would never close. Even here, the grief was too much, and he sheltered from the worst of it. There were some things he could never, ever face.

At some point he realised he was done. Either his magic had burnt itself out, or there was nothing left to do.

All the light inside of him vanished and Mosk thought his magic was gone, but then he realised no, that was the feeling of his mind vanishing, like those lights in the forest had when he’d killed the miskatin at once.

He just couldn’t handle anymore.

*

A groggy half-awareness. His head in someone’s lap. Slender fingers stroking gently over his face and hair. The presence of wings, soft around him.

‘It’s okay, dear one,’ the voice said, loving and gentle. ‘You did everything you said you would, and he drank the medicine. He’s going to be fine. He’s sleeping. You can sleep too. Get some rest.’

Mosk’s eyes leaked tears, and the long fingers brushed them away tenderly.

‘It’s just a bad dream,’ she said.

_‘Chaley,’_ he said, his voice high and lost, plaintively wishing for his sister.

‘I know,’ the voice said with such sympathy that his heart broke all over again. It wasn’t Chaley. It wasn’t Chaley, she was gone. ‘I know. It’s just a bad dream, dear one. Get some sleep.’

Mosk turned blindly into the hand petting him, and found his cheek and nose in someone’s lukewarm palm. Those long fingers curled lovingly into him, and for a moment he thought it could be Chaley, even as he knew it wasn’t.

‘It’s just a bad dream,’ she soothed. She murmured it again, coaxing him towards sleep.

Mosk slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Innocence and Accidents:'
> 
> ‘I love him,’ Julvia said, looking down at Mosk’s resting form. ‘You didn’t see him when he pulled those spears out of you. He didn’t even see himself, when he ripped himself open to heal you. I thought he was selfish. I realise now that his selfishness is a veneer that hides what he’ll sacrifice for all of us. He only wants the smallest amount of love in exchange for what he gives back.’
> 
> Julvia’s voice thickened and broke. When she looked up, even Eran could see the dull gleam of tears in her black gaze. 
> 
> ‘He’d take almost nothing, in exchange for what he gives back. Don’t give him almost nothing, Eran Iliakambar. Let him have more.’


	10. Innocence and Accidents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy everyone, it's 2021 huh? *looks around warily* Anyway, I'm just gonna *slips everyone a chapter*

_Eran_

*

He woke suddenly into darkness, and then his vision cleared and he could see Julvia sitting nearby, her great wings protectively lowered over Mosk’s prone form. The shock of seeing him so vulnerable after days of travelling galvanised him. He was standing before Julvia could even finish raising her hand to halt him.

‘He’s okay, I think,’ Julvia said. ‘He’s sleeping. And you?’

Memories rushed back. Eran shakily touched his side, his arm, felt the way he rested his weight equally on both legs without pain. He was fine. He was better than fine, it was the best he’d felt in days.

Spinning in a circle, he saw the dome of wood that he thought he’d hallucinated. It was like they were captured in a giant seed or fruit pod. Above him, there were patches of very weak light in the canopy where stars winked. The soil around them was bloodstained. Nearby were three barbed, nasty spears with wicked, blackened tips.

Eran sagged to the ground again, then reached for the pack, checking that everything was still inside it.

‘He healed you,’ Julvia said.

‘He did,’ Eran said, refusing to look up.

‘I wish you’d seen him,’ Julvia said, looking down at Mosk and ghosting her hand over his hair so tenderly, Eran was shocked. Eran wished it could be his hand. ‘I wish you’d seen what he did to himself, to save you.’

‘By all the fires,’ Eran muttered. ‘And after everything I’ve done to him.’

‘Yes,’ Julvia said. ‘After everything.’

‘I’ve been treating him so badly. I know I have. But I haven’t been able to stop. It’s like I’m possessed by something, and I know he’ll just take it. Like he’ll take the anger, so I give it to him. I hate…’ Eran looked up helplessly. ‘I hate it so much. Even when I’m not angry with him, I’ve been pushing him away.’

‘I know,’ Julvia said. ‘Do you think you’re going to stop now?’

‘I was trying to stop when we got attacked,’ Eran said, looking at Mosk. His body was limp, half on the ground, and his upper half curled against Julvia’s torso, his head resting on her thigh, his arms over her legs. Eran’s night vision wasn’t perfect, but he could see that Mosk’s mouth was a little open, his breathing deep and slow. He looked so vulnerable, even small. The eyeliner around his eyes had stayed in place. It made him look like home, like family. ‘He thinks I don’t love him.’

Julvia said nothing, and Eran knew she thought that Mosk had reasons to feel that way. He could tell that she didn’t like that he’d been pushing Mosk away. He rarely let her say so without walking away or changing the subject.

‘What would you do?’ Eran said finally.

‘I would tell him that I loved him,’ Julvia said quietly. ‘I would tell him that I loved him, and that I’m trying my best, and that I will do whatever he needs. I know it’s been hard for you, Eran, but you can’t hide every feeling that isn’t anger and resentment away from him. He needs your fear and your grief as well. And you can’t find your joy until you share those things too.’

That was the root of the issue, wasn’t it? That Eran found refuge in anger and he found refuge in resentment, but he found something overwhelming and horrid in his fear and his grief. In the way it made him anxious and made his fire feel muted.

He pushed back until he could lean against the gentle curve of the wooden pod around them. He thought of those miskatin all being stabbed at once. He’d heard it, he’d been screaming and he still heard it. He’d seen it even as his eyes rolled in agony. The spears the miskatin had attacked him with were nasty, and Eran was sure they’d been poisoned. Mosk had fixed all of it.

‘He deserves an older, wiser me,’ Eran said, looking over at Mosk, glad for the curve of Julvia’s hand protectively resting on the top of Mosk’s head. Annoyed at the jealousy that rose, because he wanted to be the one that sheltered him.

Instead, Mosk had saved them all, burning his magic out in the process.

‘No, Eran, he simply deserves to be treated better,’ Julvia said. ‘Deserving is a strange concept anyway. He should be treated better simply because he _is_ , because he exists, and he hurts too. I know he doesn’t like me very much. I don’t mind because he’s never had a chance to get to know me. On this journey, I am an unknown quantity to him, a pacifist who he must protect, someone who has had and lost so much love when he’s had nearly none in the first place. I am looked after by Ash and Augus, and Gwyn indulges me, and you like me. I would be jealous too, I think, were I always such an outsider even in a group as small as ours.’

Eran closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Jealousy. Of course Mosk would be jealous of seeing people receive and give the things he’d never gotten enough of. Eran reached sideways for the pack and drew out some dried jerky, passing some of it over to Julvia before charring the meat in his hands.

‘I love him,’ Julvia said, looking down at Mosk’s resting form. ‘You didn’t see him when he pulled those spears out of you. He didn’t even see himself, when he ripped himself open to heal you. I thought he was selfish. I realise now that his selfishness is a veneer that hides what he’ll sacrifice for all of us. He only wants the smallest amount of love in exchange for what he gives back.’

Julvia’s voice thickened and broke. When she looked up, even Eran could see the dull gleam of tears in her black gaze.

‘He’d take almost nothing, in exchange for what he gives back. Don’t give him almost nothing, Eran Iliakambar. Let him have more.’

Eran chewed and swallowed the jerky, barely tasting it. He nodded helplessly, choked up in his own emotions. No, he hadn’t seen Mosk remove the spears. He hadn’t even thought about it, now he was horrified imagining it.

‘It won’t be easy,’ Julvia said, smoothing her palm over Mosk’s hair like she was his mother. ‘But what in life ever promised to be easy? If you want ease, Eran, you have to fight through the trials to get to it. I cannot get back to Ondine until I have finished this journey. You cannot have lasting peace of mind until you’ve finished it too. But find the moments that offer you succour and sweetness until then. Find them with him.’

‘Yeah,’ Eran said. ‘I get it. You want me to open up to him more.’

‘Well,’ Julvia said with a wry smile. ‘It should be someone, shouldn’t it? And perhaps it shouldn’t be me or the others. Let it be him.’

Eran nodded, then closed his eyes and kept eating. He needed to keep his strength up. He didn’t know how long it would take for Mosk to wake, but when he did, they’d need to keep moving.

*

Mosk woke slowly, slipping back into a doze several times. Eran worried, but Julvia didn’t seem to think it was that unusual. Eran sensed that a whole day had gone by and Mosk had to eat.

Finally, two hours later, Mosk pushed up like his whole body was heavy and slumped into a weak sitting position. He looked first, urgently, towards Eran.

‘Are you all right?’ he said. He must have still been dazed, because he looked to the left of Eran, and not where he actually was.

‘Yeah,’ Eran said. ‘Thanks to you.’

Mosk leaned into the wood behind him in something like relief. Seeing how much Mosk still cared made Eran’s chest hurt.

Eran reached into the pack and drew out a canister of sap. ‘You have to eat something.’

Mosk didn’t accept the canister, only looked in Eran’s direction. ‘I can’t see anything properly. I don’t have night vision.’

Eran fell still. Mosk had done all of this without being able to _see?_ He looked at Julvia, but Julvia only smiled at Eran like she’d known all along. Eran crawled across the forest floor – across sticky, blood-stained soil – and reached for Mosk’s hand.

‘Here,’ Eran said, folding the canister into Mosk’s palm. ‘Does that help?’

‘Y-yeah,’ Mosk said, his voice still rough. He unscrewed the cap and finished the sap within seconds, then breathed heavily, like even that exhausted him.

‘Your magic was injured before by the Ratcatcher,’ Eran said, frowning. ‘How is it now?’

‘Bad,’ Mosk said. ‘The forest has something on it or in it that stops mages and people with magic from being able to use it. I had to- I had to rip through that to grow the spears that killed the miskatin, and to grow this.’ He gestured blindly up at the wooden ball all around them. ‘The forest attacked me for it. I can still feel how damaged I am inside.’

‘Is it permanent?’ Eran said, alarmed.

‘I don’t know,’ Mosk said tiredly. ‘Maybe. I hope not. But it doesn’t feel great. I can’t…get us out of here yet. Sorry. Maybe in a few hours.’

‘If the forest is fighting you…’

‘No, it’s not doing it anymore, at least not here, because I ripped the magic apart in this section and all the trees had to listen to me. They didn’t like it, but they’re bound up with me now, instead of whatever had them before. So I can get us out, I just need to…be able to use my magic, and I can’t yet.’

Eran almost wanted to tell him off for spending his magic, but he knew how ungrateful it would be.

_I just want you to be safe, that’s all. Safe._

But Mosk had burned himself out for all of them, he’d healed Eran, he’d protected them all. Eran crawled closer on his hands and knees and sat next to Mosk, his warm arm brushing Mosk’s cooler one.

Too many minutes went by and then Mosk leaned against him the tiniest amount. Eran could feel the tension in his body, the way he was stopping himself from leaning his full weight against Eran. Maybe he didn’t even know he was leaning in the first place.

‘You saved us,’ Eran said. ‘You saved me. _Gramercie.’_

‘It’s fine,’ Mosk said, sounding exhausted. ‘I’m just glad I could.’

Mosk fell into sleep slowly, slumping into Eran’s side, murmuring something softly under his breath. His knees curled up and bumped against Eran’s thigh, his cheek rested cool and perfectly soft on Eran’s shoulder.

‘I don’t like that the Ratcatcher hurt him,’ Julvia said, once he was asleep.

‘I don’t either,’ Eran said, resting his cheek against Mosk’s coarse, strong hair.

 _My strong little flame,_ he thought. _My strong, brave little flame._

*

They spent three days in the wooden capsule that Eran now thought of as a seed. Three days of Mosk eating the last of their sap when he could and sleeping almost constantly. Three days of Eran and Julvia staring up at the top of the seed and hoping that no monsters came in through the openings. Three days of Eran’s blood turning fetid in the soil. Sometimes he jerked awake remembering what the spears felt like plunging into him, catching on bones and ripping apart tendons and muscles.

Even at Court status, he would have been debilitated for a week with injuries like that. The poison might have made it much longer.

The fact that the miskatin had been stalking them all along, even though they’d avoided the light, sent shivers down his spine.

To distract themselves from Mosk’s slow recovery, Eran taught them both his mother’s words. He drew his own eyeliner in the dark and he drew it on Mosk’s face as well, explaining patiently that he couldn’t expect Mosk to draw the lines when he literally couldn’t see. Julvia talked about her mother and the Dubna, the river where she’d grown up, and she talked about her sisters in a soft, sweet voice that seemed designed to get them to remember that they had to look out for each other.

Eran decided that Julvia had a particularly effective way of guilt-tripping him into taking better care of Mosk.

On the third day, Eran heard a knock on the outside of the capsule that could only be described as polite. It filled him with so much terror he wanted to throw up. He scrambled away, Mosk woke with a start, then squinted into the darkness. His eyes had never adapted to the shadowed world around them.

‘Someone’s out there,’ Eran said, pointing.

Mosk turned and pressed his hands to the wood, like he’d done many times over the past few days. He made a small sound of shock.

‘It’s them,’ Mosk breathed. He knocked back, and the knock came again.

‘Who?’ Eran said.

‘It’s Gwyn,’ Mosk said.

Eran felt a relief so strong his knees trembled. Mosk moved his hands slowly on the wood, as though feeling it out.

‘Okay,’ Mosk whispered, ‘okay.’

Eran could feel Mosk’s magic when he pushed it against the wood. He’d been able to feel the heaviness of Mosk’s magic since he woke from being healed. He knew Mosk couldn’t close it up properly, knew he had so little control over it. And he could feel the way the magic strained just to open a hole in the wood.

Eran was shocked to see the seed around them was over a foot thick. The light from outside seemed far brighter than usual, even though they were still in Oswal-Tay.

‘We’ve seen the dead miskatin,’ Gwyn said through the gap. ‘Are you all safe?’

‘Yes,’ Mosk said. ‘Everyone’s here.’

‘You did well waiting. Can you come out? We’re only two or three days away from the northern border of the forest.’

‘My magic is weak,’ Mosk confessed, like it was a shameful thing. Like he hadn’t healed Eran, protected them, made the protective egg and killed those miskatin. ‘The forest didn’t like me using it.’

‘It’s an extremely hostile forest,’ Augus’ voice came through the gap. It was far more muted than Gwyn’s, the hole in the wood wasn’t that big. ‘I’m surprised you got it to do anything at all.’

‘Is anyone injured?’ Gwyn said. ‘I felt… Is anyone hurt?’

‘No,’ Mosk said.

‘Yes,’ Eran said firmly, walking closer to the gap in the wooden wall. ‘Mosk’s injured his magic. He hasn’t been able to use it properly, and he’s needed to sleep a lot. It’s not just weak, he said himself that it’s damaged.’

Mosk stilled, but didn’t say a word. Eran felt rude for cutting in like that, but he was tired of Mosk overusing himself for their cause. The image of Gwyn forcing Mosk to train with his magic now, when they were all so vulnerable, filled him with anger.

‘I can open the gap more, I think,’ Mosk said.

It took about twenty minutes before it opened enough for them all to crawl through. Mosk fell forwards into the space he’d made, unconscious, and Eran reached for him, but Gwyn’s hands were already there, pulling him out of the seed.

‘We’ve been resting for days,’ Eran said, running to fetch the pack and gesturing for Julvia to go ahead of him in case she needed help with her wings. ‘He still hasn’t recovered.’

When he got out, Gwyn looked Eran over, looked at the bloodstains on his clothing and then crawled into the giant seed casing. He returned with one of the spears, staring at Eran closely.

‘He healed wounds caused by these?’ Gwyn said.

Eran nodded. Julvia nodded too, she stood protectively by Mosk’s side where he lay near Augus’ feet. Eran thought Augus and Ash looked better somehow, more vital and alive, but he couldn’t tell if it was just the relief of seeing them, or if they’d actually gotten to feed when they saw the Ratcatcher.

Eran noticed the damage to the forest around them. It was lighter out here because about two hundred trees had been split and cracked and simply fallen over. There were roots at the base of Mosk’s wooden dome, and from the outside looking in, it really did look like a giant wooden egg had been deposited by a creature larger than any that had ever existed. Spears and spikes pressed out of the ground all around them, as though Mosk had made sure no one could come close to them.

Even where they stood, it was clear that Gwyn had broken some of the spears and spikes to reach them.

Eran stared at Mosk, who looked far too wan and clammy in the forest’s strange light. Above them, the patches of blue sky didn’t make the forest seem any less dangerous.

‘Did you get to feed?’ Julvia asked Ash.

‘Yeah,’ Ash said, though he didn’t sound cheerful about it. Eran looked at his sombre expression. ‘We both did. But paying the Ratcatcher’s debt…wasn’t fun.’

Augus said nothing, only reaching out to place his hand on Ash’s arm.

‘Will it impact our journey?’ Eran asked.

‘It wasn’t that kind of debt,’ Gwyn said. ‘The Ratcatcher didn’t interfere with our journey. He asks for personal debts that no one wants to pay.’

‘Mosk said the Ratcatcher messed with his magic.’

Gwyn’s hand clenched on the black-tipped spear. His blue eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Mosk went to check if-’

Augus and Gwyn were already sharing a meaningful look.

‘What is it?’ Eran asked.

‘I _knew_ I felt something,’ Gwyn said. ‘I talked to Augus about it later, but the sensation didn’t last. Are you telling me…?’

Gwyn sucked in a slow, furious breath and glared at Mosk where he laid on the ground. Mosk’s mouth was a little open again, like he was just sleeping normally.

‘Are you telling me that I split our group up, specifically to save you all from the Ratcatcher, and Mosk visited _anyway?_ What did the Ratcatcher do to him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eran said. ‘I don’t even think Mosk knows. I don’t think there was a debt or anything. But he said he was attacked. He just- Look I know he shouldn’t do things like that, but you know his heartsong, he _does_ things like that. He really just wanted to make sure you were all alive. He was worried about how long our journey was taking and wanted to make sure you weren’t all waiting in Arkhel for us.’

‘Wait, what’s his heartsong?’ Ash said. ‘He’s already grown one? Really?’

‘It’s risk,’ Gwyn said. ‘Normally I wouldn’t disclose a heartsong so frankly, but it’s dangerous to us.’

‘Is it?’ Eran said. At Gwyn’s hard stare, he had to look away. ‘Okay, obviously it is sometimes, but you didn’t see what he did for us to keep us safe. All of that…’ He gestured towards the wood and the spears. ‘It’s not the same as knowing that you can trust you’re going to be safe in the world’s most horrible forest because he’s there with you. Gwyn, aside from that time with the Ratcatcher, which he was really upset about – he hasn’t even trained with the magic in the pendant since then – he’s been working really hard and watching over us. If you’re just going to lecture him when he wakes up then…’

‘Then what?’ Gwyn said grimly.

‘Then you can travel up ahead of us and we’ll follow behind you and meet you in Arkhel,’ Eran said firmly.

Gwyn stared down at Mosk and then dragged his hand roughly through his hair. He cast a look of disgust at the spear and tossed it aside.

‘Will he be well enough to travel?’ Gwyn said finally. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

‘Neither do we,’ Eran said. ‘But I don’t know. Ask him when he wakes up.’

Gwyn opened his mouth to say something, and Augus shook his head minutely. Gwyn eventually turned to the giant wooden pod. Eran knew he was impressed by it. Seeing it from the outside showed how it scooped deeply down into the ground. Support struts in the form of winding, curving roots looked like veins feeding into it.

‘Okay,’ Gwyn said, sighing.

Eran knew things must have gone badly with the Ratcatcher. Even though Augus and Ash got to feed, all of them seemed bruised. It made Eran worry more about Mosk, because he never seemed to do well when all six of them travelled together. But he didn’t know what to do. They would all have to wait until Mosk woke.

*

Mosk was well enough to walk a few hours later and Gwyn didn’t ask him about the Ratcatcher. They travelled together, muted and quiet, back into the gloom of the forest. Eran tried to hold onto the fact that there were six of them now, they were closer to Arkhel than they’d been, but as soon as they were back under the thick black canopy, he became twitchy once more. Even Mosk went from a tired heaviness to that tense alertness of before, his fingers always partially curled as though he was ready to fight the whole world if necessary.

Something he’d already proved he would do, just to save Julvia and Eran.

‘I hate Oswal-Tay,’ Gwyn said abruptly, hours later, as night began to fall.

‘You?’ Augus said, though his amusement felt more lacklustre than usual. ‘You hate a forest?’

‘Doth mine eyes deceive me?’ Ash said in a strange, formal accent. 

‘It was one of the first places I ended up as underfae,’ Gwyn said. They walked past another tree that had bone charms and flesh dolls hanging from it. Ligaments and muscles were tied around the limbs and bone chimes hung still in the windless air. ‘It was…not a good place to be as an underfae.’

‘When they demoted you,’ Eran said, realising he’d never really thought about Gwyn as underfae. He’d always heard the story that Gwyn had absconded to the Unseelie Court and been made King. ‘How did you end up here?’

‘Well,’ Gwyn said, then laughed softly. ‘The thing is, when you’re a high status and a good hunter, forests like this seem like good places to hide. No one likes them. I do quite well in cursed forests when I’m on my own and Court status or higher. So I came here to hide.’

‘It was instinctive,’ Augus said. ‘They were going to kill you.’

‘Yes,’ Gwyn said. ‘And of course it was a period of time where I thought I’d also be killed if I turned up at the Unseelie Court. Ash’s letter had been…clear.’

‘Oh, great,’ Ash said. ‘I didn’t even- We’ve never even _talked_ about that. God almighty, man, was there any way that I was _not_ fucking up your life back then?’

‘Not really,’ Gwyn said.

‘I don’t understand,’ Eran said.

‘I released Augus back to Ash, back when Ash and Gulvi were the monarchs of the Unseelie Court,’ Gwyn said. ‘Ash sent me a letter saying that Augus was with them, safe, but that Augus didn’t want to see me again. I knew Ash hated me. So when Albion demoted me to underfae and I managed to escape him, as far as I knew, I had nowhere to go and didn’t trust anyone to help me. I never planned to return to the Unseelie Court. I’m aware of what the stories say, but the truth is that I imagined a life for myself where I would simply…learn to live as underfae until I died. But it turned out Augus _did_ want to see me again.’

‘I didn’t know what Ash had said in the letter,’ Augus said. ‘I was searching for him. I knew Albion was going to kill him.’

‘Ah, Albion,’ Gwyn said, shaking his head. He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like: ‘And now I’m the blasted Dual-King, apparently.’

‘How did you survive?’ Julvia asked. ‘How did you survive Oswal-Tay when you were underfae?’

‘I ran,’ Gwyn said. ‘I ran until I got out. That was all I could do. The Blue Annis hunt in here, cousin to the Black Annis. They’re a hive-mind fae. There’s nothing to do but run from them.’

‘Maybe that’s what we saw,’ Eran said. ‘They ran from the miskatin lights, but they came for us when we first got here.’

‘It’s likely,’ Gwyn said. He pointed at another tree strung with tendons and bones as they passed. ‘They make these. So they’re around.’

‘Yay,’ Ash said, silently clapping his hands together in false enthusiasm. Eran couldn’t help but smile and Ash beamed at him. It created a burst of warmth in Eran’s chest. He followed the momentum of that feeling, walking up to Mosk and picked up the rope trailing from his wrist, holding it.

Mosk looked at him in surprise.

‘Do you mind?’ Eran said. He wanted to make it an order, but he didn’t feel right giving Mosk orders after how he’d behaved.

‘No,’ Mosk said, looking down at Eran’s hand. ‘N-no. Just…keep your grip loose, in case I need to use my magic.’

‘How is it?’ Gwyn said.

‘I don’t know,’ Mosk said after some thought. ‘It feels a bit like a tapestry that’s been ripped apart. The pieces are still there, but they’re not coming together properly, and they’re taking a really long time to kind of…merge back together again. I don’t think Court healing applies to magical injuries.’

‘It doesn’t,’ Gwyn said. ‘There’s a reason fae scar permanently as a result of magical attacks. But it is recovering?’

‘Yeah,’ Mosk said. ‘It is. It’s already a lot better than it was. I can do whatever you need me to do.’

‘Mosk…’ Eran said.

‘If it’s to save us, I can do it,’ Mosk said firmly. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’

Eran didn’t have anything to say, he felt chastened. Mosk and Gwyn were the clear protectors out of all of them. Eran just nodded, and Mosk blinked at him like he didn’t expect it, his face smoothing like he was glad.

A cracking sound nearby in the forest, and Mosk and Gwyn both turned their heads swiftly to stare in that direction.

Eran couldn’t wait to be out of this forest. It didn’t matter what status he was, he never wanted to see it again.

*

Eran abandoned all attempts to relax when he saw that Gwyn was just as on edge as Mosk was. Not only that, but his steps were perfectly silent, which meant he didn’t want them to be heard. But Julvia’s steps weren’t silent, Eran’s weren’t, Mosk’s weren’t, and while Augus and Ash weren’t bad at doing the whole silent-walking thing, it was obvious that they just made _noise._

They heard the cracking and creaking of twigs and branches, which might have made more sense if they ever saw wild animals, or felt the merest trace of a breeze. Even the glowing lights of creature’s eyes had never resolved into anything. His night vision didn’t stop the shadows in Oswal-Tay from appearing completely opaque.

The smell of decay rose in the air around them. A fleshy, suppurating rot that permeated Eran’s nose and felt heavy in his mouth, soiling his tongue, his teeth and the insides of his cheeks whenever he opened his mouth. He wasn’t even holding the rope around Mosk’s wrist anymore, because Mosk had his hands up, his arms ready. It was clear that he expected trouble.

‘Was it this bad coming for us?’ Eran whispered.

‘No,’ Gwyn said. ‘I think…you’ve attracted the attention of the denizens of this place.’

Mosk looked over his shoulder behind him into the shadows, but when Eran followed his alarmed, frightened gaze, he saw nothing.

He wanted it to be paranoia, he wanted to tell himself there was nothing to worry about. But he pressed his torso where the spear had skewered him, he could feel the path of the spear in his arm and his leg, even though he was healed.

A few minutes later they heard footsteps walking alongside them. Gwyn held out his hand and they all stopped, and the footsteps stopped. Eran swallowed thickly. Gwyn stared fixedly in the direction of the steps for a long time, then after long minutes where Eran felt sick with fear, he gestured for them to start walking again.

The footsteps started, matching theirs, and Eran would have done anything to not be in this place. No location had ever scared him as much. There were haunted and cursed places where he grew up in Aram’kelton, but nothing like this. Nothing like this.

That night they huddled close to each other and Gwyn didn’t reassure them and he didn’t tell them they were safe. He stayed standing over them with his sword out, and none of them slept. Around them came the sounds of footsteps that would start and then stop again. Owls screamed, other voices screamed, many sounding agonised or terrified. In the distance a crash like a tree falling.

Mosk stayed wide awake, and Eran sat beside him, less to comfort Mosk and more to comfort himself. He didn’t know places like this still existed in the world, and he didn’t like any place that had the Unseelie King so alert and on edge.

*

The attack, when it came, first looked like Gwyn swinging his sword and a head rolling towards them. A miskatin’s shocked face and wide empty eyes.

Fifteen more launched out from the shadows, making horrible clattering noises with their throats. Eran stood clumsily. Even as he reached out to pull Mosk up with him, he realised Mosk was already lurching away.

 _‘Halt!’_ Augus shouted, the compulsion so thick in his word that even Eran felt like he wanted to stop.

The miskatin didn’t stop, and Gwyn shook his head even as he ran, even as he opened his mouth.

 _‘RUN!’_ Gwyn shouted.

They ran, Eran reaching for Julvia’s hand automatically to help her move faster. Gwyn stayed at the rear, following them, turning to attack when the miskatin got too close. More miskatin poured out of the forest. There were too many for Gwyn to handle while keeping them safe.

Eran had never felt more like a liability than he did in that moment.

Mosk made a low, growling noise in the back of his throat and stopped running. He turned and shoved his splayed fingers towards the ground like he could _push_ it down, even though he wasn’t touching it.

The trees around them created wooden webbing so fast several miskatin slammed straight into it. Some began scrabbling at the ground to bury beneath. Others took to the trees, climbing over the webbing and dropping down.

It had bought them time to keep running, to gain distance, but Mosk was wheezing with every breath.

It cost him too much to do the magic.

Eran wasn’t sure how long they kept running for, but after what felt like hours of Gwyn wielding his sword, those creatures screaming, and everyone else trying to stay ahead of the miskatin, Gwyn finally called for them to stop. 

Mosk collapsed, his hands flailing out to brace himself as he heaved for breath.

Another noise nearby from the opposite direction. Gwyn whirled and charged, only to stop when fifty Blue Annis crept out of the shadows staring at them. Too tall, joints looking broken, with their strange limbs and blue fur and empty, hungry eyes.

 _‘Leave us,’_ Augus cried.

‘They don’t respond to compulsions,’ Gwyn said, holding his sword at the ready and staring at them all. ‘Were it just me, I would take them on.’

He spared them all one quick glance. Eran knew it was awful for him to have to think of them with every action he took. That if he tried to kill twenty at once, thirty might slip past and kill his wards.

The Blue Annis charged. Gwyn shouted at them to run. He sprinted towards the monsters, swinging his sword and killing five so fast that he was a blur. Eran saw the spray of blood, the creatures dropping to the forest floor. Gwyn’s violence was extreme, as frightening as the creatures themselves. Gwyn didn’t stab fae, he cleaved them in two.

Eran spun, picked up momentum to sprint away, then stumbled into a halt when he saw Mosk running towards Gwyn.

_‘Mosk!’_

Mosk didn’t respond. He raised his hands, his whole body tense. Gwyn turned to look even as the Blue Annis lunged towards all of them.

Eran felt it this time, felt it because he wasn’t screaming in agony, because he wasn’t as distracted. He felt Mosk’s magic splinter into the world, felt it flood the ground beneath them, heard the canopy shaking, black leaves falling.

At once, the jaws of the forest snapped shut on every Blue Annis near them, sharp spines of wood stabbing up from the forest floor, stabbing down from the trees and the canopy itself. The shrieks from the dying, paralysed creatures were terrible. 

Eran heard another cracking noise. He and Gwyn spun at once. A family of fae huddled in terror, a Blue Annis was near them, skewered to death and bleeding. The fae family stared at them. It had never occurred to Eran that anyone in this forest could be something other than a monster, but it put the bone trees into horrid context, it made the screams they’d listened to all night suddenly seem like more than owl-shrieks.

A swelling, gathering sensation; Eran couldn’t place it. He turned, confused, to see Mosk spinning towards the family, raising his arms, calling his magic, a dazed look on his face.

‘Mosk,’ Gwyn said, the word carrying true fear. ‘ _Mosk, don’t, it’s-’_

Eran realised what was going to happen. Realised that Mosk was responding to noises, and not to the way people looked. Realised that Mosk had heard the crack and assumed he’d missed something. Eran’s entire body coiled to spring and stop him.

It was too late.

Mosk clenched his fists, the magic responded, the wood in the forest skewered seven more fae. Gwyn was screaming at him. Augus used his compulsions, but it was too late. The noise in Eran’s head was impossible, as though every fibre of his body was shrieking, just like Gwyn was screaming at Mosk to _STOP._

Mosk’s expression was already clearing before his arms dropped. He stared at the mother and father, the five children. Eran couldn’t look at them. He saw them in the corner of his eye, even that was too much. Their blood was so much redder than that of the Blue Annis or the miskatin, it was red, searing into his peripheral vision.

He watched, instead, as Mosk stared at the family, then dropped heavily to his knees. His expression vacant, his mouth open.

Around them, black leaves fell from the canopy like rain. Several Blue Annis choked and cried in their death throes.

‘We have to keep moving,’ Gwyn said, staring at Mosk with wide eyes.

None of them moved. None of them made a sound. And Eran watched the life and determination vanish from Mosk’s eyes, and felt like he’d been skewered with wood himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...*runs away*


	11. Debts Unclaimed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to think of something to say but my teeth have decided to hurt me, so instead I'm going to offer you all this chapter! A chapter that for once, doesn't end with a horrible cliffhanger! HUZZAH
> 
> I love Gwyn so much but man he is not a good dad sometimes sdlkafjds

_Mosk_

*

Mosk’s mind was so empty he didn’t remember the two days it took to get out of Oswal-Tay.

It was only another day later that he blinked dazedly at the fire he was sitting in front of and realised Eran was holding the piece of rope that trailed from his wrist. Mosk’s legs were bent uncomfortably beneath him. He could tell in a sleepy, empty way that his magic was injured. But even injured, he’d still managed to kill that family.

He’d known the moment he’d committed to the magic, the moment before the wood had actually sprung from the ground and the trees. He’d known the mistake he’d made and then he watched himself make it.

Olphix came into Mosk’s forest and killed his family.

Mosk went into another forest and killed a family.

He inhaled sharply and five heads swung towards him at once. Mosk refused to look at any of them. There was nothing to say.

There was not a single word he could say and nothing he wanted to say. He hadn’t said anything since he’d killed that family. He couldn’t undo his actions. He didn’t want to hear them tell him he was a villain. He knew he was. He knew he was awful. But he needed some time to get used to it. He needed time to make sure he wouldn’t react without crying and begging them to help him fix it.

It couldn’t be fixed.

They tried to draw him into conversation and Mosk stared at the fire and let his head go empty and said nothing at all.

There was nothing to say.

*

He became more aware the next day when they were walking. Eran was holding the rope to guide him, and Mosk felt guilty that Eran had to do that much, so he started paying attention to where he was walking. Eran dropped back to walk alongside him.

‘Are you all right?’ Eran asked.

Mosk didn’t speak.

Even if he wanted to, he imagined every single one of his words falling from his belly and rotting together, like leaves during a soggy autumn.

He thought of the fact that there were five children. One was so small she’d been cradled by her older brother. Mosk wondered if they had enough time to think they were saved, because they’d still looked so frightened. But he constantly imagined their faces breaking into the relief they never had time to express.

They could have been saved. Mosk had been reacting at that point, determined to respond to every hostile noise with lethal force, and his magic took on its own momentum. Even ripped and broken and damaged, it had its own urges, its own desires. It was almost like it was determined to impress him, determined to prove itself. It felt good to use it, even when it hurt.

He was an Aur dryad.

He was meant to be a pacifist.

He started laughing quietly, staring at the path and making sure he didn’t fall, making sure it wasn’t hard for Eran to pull him along. But he couldn’t stop laughing. And he sensed the others looking at him, but Mosk didn’t look at them.

Eventually they all stopped and Augus walked up to him, then walked behind him. Mosk didn’t even flinch, at this point he wanted one of them to have enough mercy to kill him. He’d stopped laughing. He felt Augus’ hands on his back, one between his shoulder blades and one below, pressed sideways at his mid-back.

‘They’re damaged,’ Augus said in response to a question Mosk hadn’t bothered listening to.

‘Can you heal them?’ Gwyn said.

‘What do you expect me to do, Gwyn?’ Augus said tiredly. ‘The kind of work needed to heal his meridians is not easy work. If it were so easy, I wouldn’t have needed to see Fenwrel so often myself over the last ten years. They’ve had a shock; we just have to wait.’

‘What about his heartsong?’

‘It’s mildly unstable, but it’s doing better than the rest of him,’ Augus said.

Fingers curled gently into Mosk’s back, and Mosk stared down at the ground and wondered at the fact that he still had the capacity to like the way Augus’ hands felt, to like the way Eran held onto the rope for him. But he didn’t speak. Not when Augus gently prompted him, and not when Gwyn said Mosk’s name in a firmer voice. Gwyn didn’t sound all that angry, not really.

_‘Mosk,’_ Augus said, the compulsion painful. Mosk felt like he could almost isolate it and ignore it, but he was answering before he figured out how to do it.

‘Stop,’ Mosk said, his voice rasping.

‘He can still talk,’ Augus said, sighing, his thumb rubbing between Mosk’s shoulder blades before his hand drew away. ‘We just have to wait, Gwyn.’

They started walking again and Eran stayed close to him. After a while, Eran gently took Mosk’s hand in his and Mosk closed his eyes because it felt warm and it felt good and Mosk had forgotten about Eran’s eyeliner every single day. He hadn’t meant to. Mosk just hadn’t existed in a way that allowed him to know it was there to do.

Everyone was being so nice and careful around him.

But he didn’t blame them for being so scared of who he was, and what he’d done.

*

The next morning he fumbled with the tin of eyeliner and stared at it, before waiting for Eran to wake. Gwyn was already awake and moving through his own training exercises. Mosk felt guilty for not participating. He was being lazy about all of his training. He was afraid to use his magic, and every time he was able to bind more of it up inside of himself, he did. It healed, he closed up what had recovered, and it healed a bit more, and he sealed up whatever he found that would respond to him.

He had to scrape moss off the shell the verkhwin had gifted to him. His magic was leaking.

Sometimes he wondered if he’d killed that family because his magic had gone rogue. Maybe absorbing Davix’s magic had warped him, or maybe the Ratcatcher had made his magic bloodthirsty.

But he knew it was neither of those things. Davix’s magic was there somewhere, but it was inert. It wasn’t _Davix,_ it had no personality, it was just there. And the Ratcatcher’s attack, if anything, had made it harder to kill those people. Mosk had to fight against the damage to make it happen. He had to fight to kill those innocent fae.

He couldn’t blame this on anyone else.

Eran woke, his expression twisting as soon as he saw Mosk by his side. Mosk wanted to apologise, because of course it was foolish that he was doing this, that he wanted some kind of normalcy. His hands were shaking so badly. He immediately offered the tin to Eran, wishing he had words to describe that he was sorry for being so stupid.

‘Still not talking?’ Eran said.

Mosk stared at him.

‘It’s okay,’ Eran said softly. ‘It’s okay, Mosk. Here, do you want me to do your eyes today? I can do it for both of us.’

Mosk was not only breaking a rule, but Eran felt sorry for him. Maybe Eran was scared that Mosk was going to kill more people. Because Mosk could kill anyone now.

He didn’t know what to do.

Eran’s hands were gentle on his face, he drew the eyeliner before Mosk was aware enough to stop him. And then he stared at Eran and wanted to apologise, but the people he really needed to apologise to were dead. He couldn’t bring them back.

Sometimes he thought about going back into the forest and trying to revive them, but he knew it wouldn’t work. He knew it in the same way he knew he couldn’t go back and bring his family back. He knew it in the way even Olphix couldn’t go and bring his brother back after Mosk had killed him.

‘You scared yourself,’ Eran said, his voice low and careful. ‘Mosk, I wish I knew what you were thinking. I know you did something terrible, but… But Mosk, it was a mistake. We know you didn’t mean to.’

Mosk stared at him, then he shook his head and looked down.

That was the thing, he’d meant to. He hadn’t meant to kill innocent people, but he’d certainly meant to kill _anything_ that got in their way.

He would have reached up and smeared the eyeliner off his eyes, but he knew it wouldn’t vanish, it would just smudge. He didn’t respond to anything else that Eran said, and he wondered if the others thought he’d made a mistake. A _mistake._

No.

No it couldn’t be reduced to a word like that.

He felt himself disappearing. For the rest of the day, he wasn’t aware of their walking at all, and he stumbled more than once. Whenever he tripped back into the present, into reality, he saw the way the others sometimes looked at him. He wished he could somehow give his magic to someone else and no longer exist.

*

A group of fae attacked them. Mosk watched numbly – a bystander – as Gwyn fought off about forty fae with the help of Augus’ and Ash’s compulsions. Afterwards, some were interrogated. They were a group that thought Gwyn was trying to bring about the end of the world instead of saving the fae.

Augus questioned one of them and discovered very few people believed it, which was why the group had taken matters into their own hands.

Mosk was empty as he watched. He didn’t care about the attack, he didn’t care about the compulsions, he didn’t care about the conspiracy.

Gwyn killed three people, but they’d all tried to kill him first.

Gwyn killed three people like it was easy. He definitely wasn’t upset about it. And these fae, they weren’t miskatin and they weren’t Blue Annis. They were fae who could talk and communicate and respond to compulsions and their crime was that they were afraid for their lives, so they took action.

Mosk closed his eyes and pretended he’d never been born.

*

That night while the others slept, he grew his weakened magic into filaments, little roots exploring the world. He didn’t know what else to do, and he knew in a tired, despairing way that he had to keep training his magic. The Raven Prince wanted him to. Gwyn needed him to. Even if he was a monster and even if he should never have been born, he needed to keep using it.

He could sense a wealth of information the filaments transmitted to him as he imagined trailing them along his own body, along the ground. To his surprise, there were already other magical filaments scattered everywhere. It was almost as though other magic workers over the years had left little slivers of their magic all over the place. Not enough to feel on a regular basis, but there all the same. By the bole of a beech tree, a little lattice of magic clung to one root. Mosk could feel it, but he couldn’t tell why it was there. It had a very green energy. It didn’t feel bad.

He pressed one of the tiny roots of his own magic to the pendant and it warmed and vibrated immediately in his hand. He looked up to see the phantom of the Raven Prince standing there, looking not at him, but into the middle distance. Mosk wondered how disappointed the Raven Prince would be in him if he was really there. He felt like he’d rotted inside.

_‘Well done again, Mosk,’_ the Raven Prince said in his ghostly, iridescent form. _‘Next time, use someone else’s.’_

The Raven Prince vanished.

Mosk looked at all the little filaments he could see around him. He needed to use the same inward vision that he used to see his own magic. Curious, he turned to look at Eran and the rest of their little group, sleeping nearby. 

Augus had no magic at all. The others glowed to varying degrees, but Augus was like a vacuum, except where the Raven Prince’s pendant rested around his neck. The Raven Prince’s magic was blue and violet and green. It spiralled prettily, not wild and messy like Mosk’s, but contained and controlled. Ash had only a little, bands of gold that floated in the black space of his body.

Julvia had more, a pale green and gold, and it moved slowly inside of her as she slept, like gentle waves.

Eran had more than Mosk could have imagined. It was bright and made him glow even more than the fire beside him. He looked like a beacon even for the fires around him. It was like he was the true flame. It made sense, Mosk supposed, smiling sadly. Eran always seemed like he was fire itself, but in some of the best ways.

Gwyn’s magic was repellent. Mosk had no other word to describe the way his skin crawled just looking at it. He finally realised why the Raven Prince hadn’t liked it. When he was anchored in Gwyn at the Ratcatcher’s, he hadn’t noticed it in the same way. But it was malformed, twisted up and tortured. Like a vulnerable creature bound in ropes and wires. It was injured and damaged. Instead of a gentle, whole glow, it was knotted and pockmarked with black marks like abysses. It _felt_ ugly.

Mosk looked by his crossed legs and placed his hands on the ground. There were coloured filaments and little roots of magic everywhere. They didn’t respond to the touch of his hands. But when he spread out his own magical filaments, growing them like little roots, he could pick these strange filaments up and move them around. Some felt watery, some felt feathery, some felt like sand, one felt like smoke, and a few felt like blood. There were three he picked up that he somehow knew came from a dryad.

Did people who used their magic _shed_ it? He looked around for filaments that belonged to him that he’d dropped along the way, but couldn’t see any.

But none of these random bits of magic had any intent in them. Mosk frowned.

Was it a result of performing magic? Was that why people had to seal their meridians and their energy up the rest of the time? Or was it unconscious? Did it just happen?

He carefully cradled a filament that felt like sand, because it was gentle and warm somehow, and he pressed it to the pendant with his own magic.

The pendant turned warm in his fingers, and the Raven Prince’s phantom appeared once more. Mosk missed him so much. He knew that in a despairing mood like the one he’d felt, he could just sit on the crow’s nest with the Raven Prince, and they could be there together, and say nothing at all.

But would the Raven Prince want anything to do with him anymore?

_‘I imagine that took you some time!’_ the Raven Prince said. Mosk arched his eyebrows silently. _‘We’re moving into advanced techniques now. Magical residue is everywhere, and you can use it. In fact you can weave it, create with it, spend it without ever spending more than the magic you used to control it. In this way, you can artificially expand your own reservoirs. If you use the technique for magical sight more often, you’ll be able to see how many people don’t close their magic up and how vulnerable they are because of it.’_

The Raven Prince placed his hand over his eyes and peered at something, then smiled.

_‘Look, you’re staring out at the horizon again, little melancholy tree. Do you like the ocean? I think you do. Have you learned about the animals and the trees and the land yet? Or did you only focus on people? Next time use the magic of some being that isn’t fae at all. Good luck, Mosk Manytrees.’_

The Raven Prince faded away. Mosk stared at the inert trees and rocks around him, he stared down at the land, and he couldn’t see any filaments at all that belonged to them. But he was tired. Even seeing the Raven Prince in his phantom form hadn’t cheered him. Mosk stared up at the stars. He carefully closed up his magic again and wished he would sleep.

*

Later, unable to sleep and twitchy, unable to find the nothingness that had kept him empty over the last few days, he decided to check in on Davix. At least here, they weren’t all depending just on him anymore.

He lay on his back and closed his eyes, reaching for the door to the ice. It was easy to find these days, even though it was always shut tight when he reached it. He went through the door and walked down corridors of ice towards the Mage that he’d killed.

Davix was weaker than before, Mosk was still draining the magic and his old heartsong from the ice whenever it blocked their path or hurt a city or a home. Mosk walked up to him and allowed Davix the tiniest shred of magic to make him more corporeal again.

‘My imprisoning master of my misery,’ Davix said with a weak voice. ‘Merry meet.’

Mosk wondered if he’d even notice if Davix was siphoning his magic. After all, Mosk’s magic still wasn’t fully repaired. He was damaged.

He stared at Davix and found himself mute even here. He thought he’d be able to talk, after all, Davix was the most evil person he’d ever met, aside from his brother Olphix. Shouldn’t he be able to talk to people who were like him? But even here, he couldn’t manage it. He eventually lowered himself to the cold ground, crossing his legs and staring past Davix, thinking that he didn’t even know why he’d come.

‘You are unlike any other dryad I’ve ever met,’ Davix said eventually, abandoning all of his alliteration. ‘I can see it, even in my weakened state. You’ve taken an axe to yourself. What were you doing? Trying to kill my brother?’

Mosk smiled in spite of himself.

No, he was just killing innocent people.

‘I tell myself that I’ll know the moment you kill him,’ Davix said. ‘But I’m not sure. I tire, you see, of talking always in the same way and existing beyond life. I had not planned to be a ghost. And I am not Olphix, to find different or distressing experiences so interesting that I no longer notice privation. Do you think he sees this time without me as an interesting experience? Or do you think he has finally realised what privation is?’

Mosk leaned back on his hands and looked at Davix, then shrugged.

‘I don’t want him to be hurting,’ Davix said. ‘I do not care what he has done to you, what he has cast upon the world. It doesn’t suit him to suffer.’

Davix pushed himself up slowly, weakly, sitting straighter. But he still slumped, Mosk could feel how worn Davix was. Perhaps over time he’d vanish anyway, even if Mosk didn’t break apart the plague of ice. Maybe even ghosts had a lifespan. Mosk always assumed they’d be permanent, but why had he assumed that?

‘We made a deal, you and I,’ Davix said. ‘But I cannot bring myself to give you his secrets, and he has no Achilles’ Heel aside from the most obvious one of all.’

Mosk squinted at him, and Davix lifted a limp hand and pointed at himself, smiling.

‘However, should you-’

Davix’s eyes flew open. He pushed upright, making a weak, desperate noise. His head was fixed in a certain direction, like he’d heard something in their icy world, where no one else had ever bothered them.

Mosk felt it a moment later, an alien dread marching along his spine. Except he knew this feeling. Knew it all too well. And Davix looked at Mosk in shock and avarice and _want,_ and Mosk shoved upwards and turned. He sprinted through the door connecting the ice to his dreams and slammed it shut behind him.

If looking at Eran’s magic was like looking at true flame, then looking at Olphix’s was like looking at the _sun._

Olphix glimmered, his phantom self was a muddy gold and red where the Raven Prince’s was a coalescing blue and violet. Olphix wore all-black, no motley and two necklaces around his neck. One was silver, a circle pendant with a triangle in the middle of it. The other was its twin, a silver triangle that had a circle in the middle of it. Davix used to wear the circle holding the triangle, and Olphix wore the triangle holding the circle.

They were pendant representations of the other. Mosk knew it now. The triangle was Olphix’s flame, the circle was Davix’s ice. He didn’t know why he’d never realised it before. To see Olphix wearing both, even in this form, made him feel like he was stumbling over something even though he hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps Davix was right, Olphix showed the signs of his privation more than he showed his curiosity over his brother’s death.

Olphix stood over Ash, whose eyes were wide and panicked, already glowing brighter with terror.

Mosk was numb, but rage boiled and seethed behind it. His voice unlocked. Olphix was _here._ And he was weak. And he’d attacked Mosk like this before. It wasn’t like the terror he felt around Olphix was gone, but Mosk was so used to feeling afraid now. He was so used to feeling scared in Oswal-Tay, so scared of the world, himself, his magic, of Mages.

_‘I have come to collect a debt,’_ Olphix said to Ash.

None of the other fae woke. They stayed deep in their slumber, bewitched. Mosk realised he was probably the only one awake because his dreamwalking had protected him from Olphix’s magic. But surely Olphix knew he was awake now. He’d either noticed he was awake and didn’t care, or he was so fixated on collecting his debt that he didn’t care.

Mosk pushed himself up, feeling weak and furious all at once.

The others weren’t even awake to see that Olphix had come, except for Ash, who looked like he couldn’t move. Mosk remembered how the Raven Prince had paralysed everyone on the deck of the Mantissa when he’d goaded those flying fae into spearing Ash nearly to death. How had he done that? What kind of magic was it, to control people’s bodies like that?

Olphix was right here. His body was somewhere else, but he was _here._ And Mosk knew from his experience with the Ratcatcher that it meant Olphix was vulnerable.

‘Then collect it,’ Ash said.

_‘At a certain point in the future, Augus Each Uisge, your brother and the waterhorse beside you, will seek to stop Gwyn ap Nudd, the King of the Unseelie Court, from taking his light back. When that happens, you are to let him stop Gwyn from retrieving that light. You cannot tell anyone else of this until the debt has been paid.’_

‘What?’

_‘Let him stop Gwyn ap Nudd. Do you not understand the debt?’_

‘I mean, I do, but luck’s not on your side, buddy. I can’t fulfil it,’ Ash said. ‘Or I’ll be breaking a life debt with someone else.’

Olphix was still, then he crouched abruptly and glared not at Ash, but the necklace around Augus’ neck. Augus was still locked in sleep, expression faintly troubled.

_‘I see,’_ Olphix said, reaching for the pendant with fingers that – Mosk knew – could strip magic from someone as easily as breathing.

Mosk reacted swiftly, encasing both Augus’ pendant and his own in magically reinforced hardwood. Olphix turned and saw him. Mosk felt the shock of recognition, his fear spiking. Just having those eyes on him again made him feel like he was tied to a chair, about to be killed.

Ash pushed upwards, shaking his head, horrified. ‘Mosk! Stop!’

Olphix didn’t look like he moved, but Ash went from actively calling out to Mosk, to freezing in place, mouth half-open, eyes locked and unable to blink. Mosk was distantly awed at the way Olphix used his magic as naturally as breathing. He probably didn’t need to consciously open it and close it up, he probably didn’t need to spend effort on any of it.

Mosk was grateful Eran was asleep, that he seemed unharmed. He stared as Olphix walked towards him and felt a bubbling of something thick and poisonous inside of him.

‘Hello, Olphix,’ Mosk said. ‘Missing your brother, lately?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,’ Olphix said. ‘I see you’ve all been in touch with a certain raven. His petty charms aren’t going to save you. What is one debt I can’t claim, against the rest that I can? Does he really think a waterhorse matters so much to me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mosk said, refusing to step backwards even as he began trembling. ‘It mattered enough for you to come here in your vulnerable form, didn’t it?’

‘All of you have been weakened on this journey, and I am stronger than ever,’ Olphix said, his steps slow and sure. ‘But if you’re no longer suffering, then I don’t need you to exist any longer.’

Olphix withdrew a wand of sleek, black wood from his belt and pointed it calmly at Mosk.

Agony followed. Mosk was aware of his scream, high and wild. Then he choked on saliva as it flooded his mouth and siphoned down a throat too paralysed with pain to function. Then, so locked in what he was feeling, he couldn’t help but sense the strange tip of a wand without substance at his throat.

Mosk instinctively ripped at all filaments and roots of magic he’d felt on the ground before. He dragged them to himself with his own magic. He forced his streaming eyes open even as it felt like they were boiling in his skull.

The Raven Prince had done something like this to him once, but what the Raven Prince had done was a mere shadow to what Olphix did to him now.

_I have to be stronger, at least right now. I’m flesh, and he’s not. Oengus was stronger than Olphix in his tower. The Ratcatcher was stronger than me in his home. And this place isn’t mine, but it has trees, it has soil, it has plants, it has the person I love more than anything._

_Since I lost everything, it is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a home._

Mosk lashed out, grasping Olphix’s wrist, feeling that strange, buzzing numbness of Olphix’s body even through pain that made him keen and choke.

As soon as he made contact, the agony halted, though its aftermath reverberated through him in horrible, rhythmic pulses. Olphix made a shocked noise as Mosk gasped for air. Behind them, the others woke. Mosk had no time for them.

Olphix was in pain. He recovered quickly, but Mosk was _hurting_ him. When Olphix aggressively shoved his magic forwards, Mosk did the same. He felt the strange clash of their energy, even though there was nothing to see except what went on within their bodies. It was almost anti-climactic, until he felt Olphix’s magic burning down his arm towards his heartsong.

Mosk shrieked, terror and excruciating pain twined up together. His teeth ground together, a wail in the back of his throat. 

He punched back with his own magic, seeking Olphix’s heartsong the same way he’d dislocated Davix’s. He pushed as fast and furiously as he could, unable to contain the bitter, pained roar of outrage and power as he felt something snap and spark all the way through him.

A vision of two children running. They were in a desert free of trees and grasses. The day was blisteringly hot, the sky a brutal blue, the sun like needles in the eye and the sand scalding beneath the children’s calloused feet. Both looked no older than seven or eight years old, but already their black curly hair tumbled down to their waists. One had searing blue eyes, the other had eyes of fire, and they laughed in giggles and shrieks as they clambered up the side of a sand-dune, frequently slipping and sliding back down. When they reached the top, they plunged down the other side.

They rolled down together, chubby hands and chubby fingers reaching out to entwine. They rolled faster and faster, screaming from joy and the pain of the sand against the uncalloused parts of their body. Individual grains rained on top of them and made them keep their eyes tightly shut.

Another vision of the two children, only a little older, bathing in warm dimness, surrounded by wood and the sound of musically plinking water. It steamed up onto the woodgrain, it dripped down from the ceiling above. Mosk could feel the water in his nose and lungs, it felt warm and beautiful, and one brother looked at the other, and then they were poking each other’s cheeks and foreheads and laughing like they’d never enjoyed themselves more.

The red-eyed child leaned forwards and pressed his chubby lips to his brother’s, humming happily. The kiss was simple, it was over quickly, it looked innocent. But Mosk could tell there was nothing innocent about it. They began babbling in a language that Mosk didn’t recognise, and then a much older fae walked into the communal bath space and said something reprimanding in another language. Somehow, Mosk knew that Olphix and Davix had made their own language, and it belonged to them and no one else. It was musical and soft and light, and they laughed at the adult and started talking in their own language again, pressing their foreheads together and entwining their fingers beneath the water.

Another vision. Mosk saw the dragons they shared their desert with, and couldn’t conceive of creatures so large and splendid, making Eran’s true-form look small and insignificant by comparison. Their scales were like jewels, their claws and spines wicked yet somehow still lovely. He saw the dragons launch into the skies, he saw the way the brothers ran under the giant shadows the dragons cast onto the sands, trying to keep up, pointing in wonder and awe. Mosk’s ability to think was partially broken just by seeing the dragons. He understood immediately that it was just what it was to live around them. It was how Olphix and Davix felt about them too. Dragons were just that powerful, that strong, that magically gifted. The fae lived because the dragons wanted the fae to live, not because the fae could ever be stronger than them.

He jerked forwards into the future. Olphix’s hair was so long that it reached his calves in thick, curling waves. He knelt by an egg that gleamed like amber and pressed his fingers to it. Davix joined him, an avid look on his face. They talked in that babbling language, but this time, Mosk could understand them.

_‘Are you sure?’_ Olphix said.

_‘No. You?’_

_‘No,’_ Olphix said, then he grinned and draped his body over the egg. _‘It’s so warm. I love it. I can hear her.’_

_‘Me too, but not like you. You have the fire she does.’_

_‘Ah, she’s so warm. She’s such a treasure.’_

There was wonder and respect in his voice, but that didn’t stop him from reaching beside him to pick up a black dagger. First he plunged it into his own arm, and then as his own blood spilled over the egg, he plunged the dagger through the amber shell. Mosk heard an impossible screech, the world turned white, and Mosk was thrown out of the memory.

Olphix yanked his arm away and Mosk grabbed for it, face contorted. Olphix’s eyes were wide, his wand was up, the fingers on his other hand splayed.

But even as Mosk lunged at him, Olphix’s expression became calm.

‘I have more important things to deal with.’

He vanished.

Mosk collapsed heavily to the ground, his face wet. It wasn’t until he tasted it in his mouth that he realised it was his own blood. It really was like what the Raven Prince had done to him, he could feel blood dripping from his ears, his mouth, his nose, his eyes. He pitched forwards weakly.

What the Ratcatcher had done to him and his magic was nothing to what Olphix had done in less than ten seconds. He heard the others racing towards him, heard voices, but felt crushed beneath what had happened. The world turned black. 

*

The next day he woke to Augus leaning over him, face bearing a subtle concern, and he realised his head was in someone’s lap. From the warmth of the skin behind him, he knew it was Eran. Strangely, he thought of Olphix draping himself over the dragon’s egg, and then he thought of those two chubby hands interlocking and the feeling of rolling down the sand dunes.

Was it wrong to envy their love for each other? Mosk wasn’t sure he’d known anything like that in his life.

‘What happened?’ Gwyn said. Mosk turned to look at him.

‘He came to claim the debt,’ Mosk rasped, then coughed violently. Augus and Eran both helped him lean over, and Mosk kept coughing, sucking down huge, hoarse breaths until he ejected a massive glob of clotted blood. Afterwards, his breathing came easily, he sagged back, rubbing at his mouth. His lungs still hurt. He realised Olphix had done physical damage that Mosk hadn’t felt at the time.

‘I _know_ that,’ Gwyn said. ‘What did he want from _you?’_

‘Nothing, I think,’ Mosk said. ‘I drew his attention away from Ash and he decided to kill me because he said I wasn’t suffering anymore. Then he left because I tried to take his heartsong and I think…I did something to him. I don’t know. Is there any water?’

Augus offered a glass bottle that was new, perhaps they’d picked it up while travelling to the Ratcatcher. Mosk sipped gingerly, getting the wretched, stale iron-and-meat taste of blood out of his mouth. He sagged back afterwards, leaning back against Eran’s chest.

He didn’t want to be talking again. He hated that this was the thing that had broken his words out of him.

He thought of his conversation with the Raven Prince, all the way back on the Mantissa. That was the day the Raven Prince had attacked him. The day that Mosk had talked easily about breaking his magic over and over again so that he might become strong enough to defeat Olphix. The day the Raven Prince casually asked who would then be strong enough to defeat Mosk. He closed his eyes.

That family was still dead. And he knew – could _feel_ – that Olphix’s magic was so strong that Mosk would never be able to touch him in person.

‘You’re still too cold,’ Augus said suddenly, frowning. ‘Gwyn, we have to stop at a village or an inn. Arkhel can wait.’

Gwyn made a sound of frustration. ‘I’m sure if we just-’

‘No. I’m making a decision,’ Augus said, lifting one of Mosk’s eyelids to look deeper into his eye. Mosk flinched, but Augus only stared at something that made his lips purse.

‘I can walk,’ Mosk said. ‘I’ve been through worse.’

‘A ringing endorsement,’ Ash said, and Mosk turned to look at him. He seemed fine. Mosk was glad Olphix couldn’t make Ash pay the debt, but he still didn’t understand the terms of the debt. Only that Gwyn’s light was important, and that Olphix didn’t want him to take it back. Which meant Gwyn could take it back.

‘I’m tired too,’ Julvia said softly. ‘Please, I am sorry to be the one who needs rest so often, but I am not feeling well either.’

Mosk squinted at her, and she looked at him and though she wasn’t smiling, it was almost like she was trying to communicate something to him. And then Eran slid his arm carefully around Mosk’s torso, protective and warm, and Mosk flinched helplessly, and then felt something unlock in his spine.

He felt wretched. His head throbbed. But Eran was warm, and not in a bad way.

‘Okay,’ Gwyn said heavily. ‘Okay. There’s a village nearby. I was hoping to go straight to Arkhel, but… No, we could all do with some rest and a chance to catch up.’

‘Thank you,’ Julvia said softly. ‘I’m sorry to burden you all like this.’

‘You’re a sweetheart,’ Ash said, walking over to her and kissing her on the forehead. ‘You’re not a burden at all, my lady.’

Mosk realised she’d taken the guilt away from him and decided to bear it herself. And the others dispelled it and told her she didn’t have to feel guilty, and they were going to take a break, and it wasn’t going to be Mosk’s fault. And somehow, she’d done that for him, she’d done it on purpose.

Ash was talking to her, and she nodded in response, but she smiled gently at Mosk. And Mosk wanted to smile back, but his face was too sore.

He stared at her, and as he stared, he thought of the shadows of dragons over the desert sands, and turned weakly into Eran’s body, mourning for something unspeakable, beyond his understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our next chapter, 'Come Back To Me:'
> 
> ‘Do you mind if I suggest something?’ Augus said in his soft, eloquent voice. 
> 
> ‘Why would I mind?’ Eran said, confused. 
> 
> ‘I’d like you to put your hand on the back of his neck,’ Augus said. 
> 
> Eran hesitated, and Augus made a small sound of acknowledgement. 
> 
> ‘That’s why,’ Augus said. 
> 
> But Eran lifted his hand away from Mosk’s lower back and placed his hand on the back of Mosk’s neck. And Mosk shivered, because it was commanding, and even though the Mages had done that to him as well, Eran’s hand was different. He blinked slowly, absorbed by the change in the way Eran was touching him. 
> 
> He didn’t even care that Augus was sitting right there, that it had been Augus’ idea.


End file.
